LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

ANNIE  CARROLL  MOORE 


ROADS   TO 
CHILDHOOD 

VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS  OF 
CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 

BY 

ANNIE  CARROLL  MOORE 


NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


M7 


COPYRIGHT,   1920, 
BY   GEORGE    H.   DORAN   COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE   UNITED   STATES   OF  AMERICA 


TO 

CAROLINE  M.  HEWINS 
Who  has  passed  on  to  children  of  many  races  the 
rare  gift  of  a  companionship  with  books  based  on 
friendship  rather  than  on  desire  for  knowledge. 


i  O 


''r'"7    fr-' 


2037413 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD     ...  II 

II      WRITING   FOR  CHILDREN        .      .  26 

III  A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT       .  4$ 

IV  VIEWING       AND       REVIEWING 

BOOKS   FOR  CHILDREN      .      .  71 

V      HOLIDAY   BOOKS 97 

VI      CHILDREN      UNDER     TEN      AND 

THEIR   BOOKS 121 

VII      TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS  FOR  CHIL- 
DREN      139 

VIII      A  SPRING  REVIEW  OF  CHILDREN'S 

BOOKS 157 

IX      BOOKS   FOR  YOUNG   PEOPLE  .      .  174 

X      VACATION   READING      ....  194 

INDEX 217 


vii 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 


CHAPTER  ONE 

ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

And  the  little  roads  of  Cloonagh  go 
rambling  through  my  heart. 

EVA  GORE-BOOTH. 

CORNISH  road  has  fallen  in,  fallen  in, 
\^>     fallen  in; 

Cornish  road  has  fallen  in; 
Where  has  it  gone  to? 

I  sang  the  words  under  my  breath  to 
the  tune  of  London  Bridge.  A  new  road 
built  to  shorten  the  distance  from  one 
Maine  village  to  another  had  sunk  over- 
night— had  vanished  from  the  face  of  the 
earth.  People  drove  from  far  and  near 
to  see  the  place  where  the  road  had  been. 
Old  inhabitants  proclaimed  once  more  the 
folly  of  building  new  roads  to  save  time. 
It  was  far  better,  they  said,  to  take  time 
to  climb  over  a  mountain  and  feel  safe 
than  to  risk  a  road  built  over  a  swamp. 
ii 


12      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

I  was  a  very  little  girl  when  the  Cornish 
road  fell  in  and  my  imagination  feasted  on 
the  incident  in  all  its  dramatic  possibilities. 
What  had  become  of  the  road?  Could  it 
have  fallen  all  the  way  through  to  China  or 
did  it  stop  falling  somewhere  between 
countries'?  What  kind  of  people  were 
riding  over  it  and  were  they  riding  on 
ponies'?  Would  the  road  ever  rise  again*? 

I  firmly  believed  that  the  road  would 
rise  again  and  fervently  prayed  that  I 
might  be  on  hand  to  see  it  happen.  For- 
tunately for  me  "Every  Child"  was  still 
unborn  and  no  volumes  of  complete  pic- 
tured knowledge,  no  sterilized  journeys 
through  bookland,  obscured  those  delight- 
ful pictures  of  my  sunken  road. 

I  had  always  loved  the  Cornish  road 
for  its  woods  and  rushing  brooks  and,  most 
of  all,  because  it  led  straight  on  to  the 
White  Mountains.  From  its  open 
stretches  on  a  clear  day  I  could  see  Mount 
Washington  white  with  snow.  Beyond  the 
White  Mountains  lay  the  world,  but  I  felt 
in  no  haste  to  explore  it,  I  was  too  fear- 
ful of  missing  something  vitally  inter- 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD      13 

esting  at  home.  The  Cornish  road  from 
this  time  on  became  my  favorite  road.  It 
was  the  high  road  to  the  world  and  a 
piece  of  it  had  fallen  under  an  enchant- 
ment. No  wonder,  since  the  story  of  The 
Sleeping  Beauty  was  my  favorite  fairy 
tale. 

From  my  father  I  learned  that  the  new 
Cornish  road  had  fallen  in  because  not 
enough  water  had  been  drained  from  the 
swamp;  that  it  was  quite  possible  not  only 
to  build  strong  roads  across  swamps,  but 
even  to  build  houses  and  barns,  churches 
and  schools  upon  them.  Our  own  lovely 
old  world  garden  and  the  great  field  be- 
hind it  had  been  an  alder  swamp,  he  said. 
Even  the  tall  pine  trees  which  sheltered 
the  garden  from  the  north  wind  had  not 
stood  there  forever,  planted  by  God  at 
Creation,  as  I  had  supposed.  The  pine 
trees  and  all  the  other  trees  had  been 
planted  by  my  father  at  the  time  the  house 
was  built  and  when  my  eldest  brother  was 
a  little  boy.  But  men,  I  learned,  were 
often  in  too  much  of  a  hurry  to  see  a 
thing  done  to  spend  time  and  thought  in 


laying  a  strong  foundation.  Roads  and 
stone  walls  required  very  firm  foundations. 
The  Romans  had  understood  this  better 
than  New  Englanders.  My  father,  al- 
though a  native  New  Englander,  seemed 
to  have  taken  a  great  many  of  his  ideas 
from  'the  Greeks  and  Romans.  These 
ideas,  no  doubt,  enabled  him  to  fight  and 
win  one  legal  battle  after  another  over 
the  roads  of  the  Ossipee  Valley  and  to  put 
through  the  first  experiment  in  intensive 
farming  in  that  part  of  Maine. 

New  roads  were  absolutely  necessary, 
he  said,  for  people  who  must  catch  trains, 
for  the  stage  coach  which  brought  the 
daily  mail,  for  boys  and  girls  who  must 
go  to  school,  for  doctors  who  must  look 
after  sick  people  living  at  a  distance  from 
one  another,  for  lawyers  who  must  pro- 
tect the  lives  and  property  of  the  farmers, 
for  the  farmers  themselves  even  though 
they  might  not  want  the  roads  to  run 
through  their  farms.  It  was  often  neces- 
sary to  persuade  men  to  do  things  they 
could  see  no  reason  for  doing.  An  untir- 
ing champion  of  new  roads,  my  father  was 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD       15 

no  less  ardent  a  lover  of  old  roads,  grass- 
grown  or  carpeted  with  pine  needles,  of 
wood-roads,  of  roads  leading  over  long 
steep  hills  along  the  slopes  of  which  the 
ripest  blackberries  grew — the  very  roads 
he  had  fought  to  have  abandoned  as  high- 
ways— the  little  roads  and  lanes  of  his 
own  boyhood. 

When  his  business  was  finished  he  would 
often  say :  "Now  we  will  go  home  another 
way,  a  little  longer  and  not  as  good  a 
road — one  of  the  old  roads  with  a  beauti- 
ful view.  I  haven't  been  over  it  for  a 
long  time."  Sometimes  he  shared  with  me 
the  pictures  memory  gave  back  from  the 
road,  more  often  we  drove  for  miles  in  "so- 
cial silence."  Out  of  these  moving  silences 
it  was  to  come  to  me  quite  clearly  in  later 
years  that  civilization  has  always  rested 
and  will  continue  to  rest  on  the  dreams 
and  fancies  of  a  few  men  and  women  and 
their  power  to  persuade  others  of  the 
truth  of  what  they  see  and  feel. 

Why  then  the  singular  reluctance  of 
parents  and  teachers  to  allow  time  for  the 
ninds  and  hearts  of  children  to  be  fed  from 


16      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

within — for  the  taking  and  storing  of  im- 
pressions which  are  to  go  with  them 
through  life  but  of  which  account  is  rarely 
rendered  in  childhood?  We  are  so  eager 
for  our  children  to  know  the  things  we 
knew  and  all  we  didn't  know  at  their  age 
that  we  fail  to  provide  the  "leisure  to 
grow  wise"  that  must  lie  behind  all  who 
would  "think  with  the  heart  as  well  as  with 
the  mind." 

"Life,  what  is  it  but  a  dream?"  mur- 
murs Lewis  Carroll,  lingering  with  his 
thoughts  of  Alice  long  after  he  has  passed 
with  her  through  Wonderland  and  The 
Looking-Glass.  I  am  quite  sure  that  my 
father  had  no  conscious  thought  of  im- 
parting lessons  to  me  as  we  drove  or 
walked  about  the  country.  It  was  my 
companionship  he  sought,  not  my  improve- 
ment or  instruction,  and  his  invitations  al- 
ways meant  a  good  time.  Had  I  been  in 
the  state  of  perpetual  interrogation  chil- 
dren are  so  generally  represented  to  be,  I 
feel  reasonably  certain  I  should  more  often 
have  been  left  at  home,  for  I  now  know 
that  my  father  relied  upon  the  wide  views 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD      17 

gained  from  those  old  roads,  and  from 
moving  on  through  familiar  landscapes,  for 
the  vision  he  brought  to  his  personal  and 
professional  problems.  Doubtless  he  real- 
ized that  even  a  young  child  must  learn 
to  see  things  a  long  way  off  if  she  is  not 
to  become  weary  of  everyday  life. 

One  of  my  earliest  recollections  is  of 
hearing  about  the  Centennial  Exhibition  in 
Philadelphia,  of  the  wonderful  things  peo- 
ple had  seen  there  and  their  adventures 
by  the  way.  Some  of  these  adventures 
were  very  amusing,  quite  like  those  of  the 
Peterkins  I  thought.  I  was  thrilled  when 
I  heard  that  a  centennial  celebration  was 
to  be  held  in  an  adjoining  town.  One 
hundreds  years  represented  to  me  the  limit 
of  recorded  time.  The  Sleeping  Beauty 
had  slept  for  a  hundred  years,  my  coun- 
try was  a  hundred  years  old,  and  now 
Parsonsfield  was  to  be  put  under  the  spell 
of  a  hundred  years.  I  did  not  share  my 
anticipations  of  this  centennial  celebra- 
tion; I  merely  stated  that  I  wished  to  be 
one  of  the  family  party.  "She  will,  £t 
least,  enjoy  the  ride,"  some  one  remarked. 


i8      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

The  day  seemed  made  for  a  hundred 
years  birthday.  On  such  a  day  the  ships 
in  Portland  harbor  might  be  seen  from 
a  hill-top  east  of  the  village.  We  made 
an  early  start  for  the  drive  was  a  long 
one.  The  first  few  miles  lay  over  a  fa- 
miliar road — the  only  road  where  the 
fringed  gentians  grew.  We  turned  off  at 
a  cross-roads  and -after  a  long  time  began 
to  climb  a  long,  steep  hill.  From  the  top 
of  this  hill  there  burst  upon  my  delighted 
eyes  a  marvelous  view  of  mountains,  lakes, 
rivers,  fields  and  woods.  Never  had  the 
White  Mountains  stood  out  so  clearly. 
Never  had  I  felt  so  near  to  them.  I  called 
them  by  name — those  mountains  of  the 
Presidential  Range,  Mount  Washington, 
Mount  Adams,  Mount  Madison — and  they 
seemed  to  stir  and  to  move  slowly  on. 
Nearer  at  hand,  above  the  Ossipee  Valley, 
rose  Chocorua.  I  had  my  Centennial  cele- 
bration then  and  there.  I  wanted  to  stay 
on  that  hill-top  all  day  long,  to  see  the  sun 
set  and  the  moon  rise  and  the  mists  float 
down  the  valley. 

Of  the  actual  celebration  I  remember 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD       19 

only  that  I  was  bored,  and  haunted  by  the 
fear  that  we  might  go  home  by  another 
road.  My  mind  was  not  yet  ready  to  grasp 
historical  facts  and  I  paid  little  heed  to 
my  father's  answer  to  the  question,  "How 
can  Parsonsfield  be  a  hundred  years  old 
before  the  State  of  Maine  is  a  hundred*?" 
But  something  very  wonderful  happened 
to  me  on  that  day.  I  was  brought  under 
the  spell  of  historical  perspective  in  the 
midst  of  natural  phenomena.  All  the 
facts  of  history  and  geography  may  change, 
empires  may  rise  and  fall,  governments 
may  perish,  but  the  centuries  march  on. 

This  year  the  State  of  Maine  celebrated 
the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  admis- 
sion to  the  Union  as  a  separate  State.  I 
attended  none  of  the  formal  exercises,  but 
the  desire  to  ride  over  the  roads  of  my 
childhood  proved  irresistible  and  I  rode 
with  the  child  I  had  been.  It  is  the  only 
true  way  to  an  understanding  of  child- 
hood and  children — the  only  way  to  unite 
the  dim  and  distant  past  with  the  present 
and  the  future.  Once  upon  a  time,  Crea- 
tion, Eternity,  a  hundreds  years  ago,  a  cen- 


20      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

tury  ago,  my  birthday — these  are  familiar 
phrases  to  children  who  have  lived  at  the 
cross-roads  of  life  and  literature.  So  many 
and  varied  are  these  roads  that  no  child 
whose  imagination  has  been  kindled  and 
sustained  in  early  life  by  habits  of  thought 
as  well  as  of  speech  need  miss  a  vision  of 
his  own  wherever  life  may  take  him. 

Back  over  the  Cornish  road  I  rode  once 
more — this  time  in  a  motor  with  three  fas- 
cinating children,  five,  seven  and  eight 
years  old.  Did  I  tell  them  of  the  sunken 
road  and  the  Centennial  view  of  my  child- 
hood*? Oh,  no!  I  was  too  eager  for  a 
share  of  their  friendship.  We  had  a  pic- 
nic in  the  woods  undefiled  by  reminiscence. 
Children  are  usually  bored  by  the  person 
who  thinks  aloud  and  one  must  be  known 
and  loved  before  it  is  safe  to  risk  an  in- 
timate personal  recollection.  "We  all  go 
home  at  Christmas,"  Dickens  reminds  us 
in  his  "Christmas  Tree,"  but  we  need  not 
drag  the  children  after  us.  If  writers  for 
children  would  only  remember  this! 

"I  want  to  buy  some  books  for  these 
children — no  fairy  tales,  please,  nothing 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD      21 

supernatural,  nothing  untrue  to  the  facts 
of  life.  Something  authentic  about  insects 
or  animals  and  a  book  for  the  little  boy  to 
learn  his  letters  from."  The  speaker  stood 
at  the  door  of  the  Book  Caravan,  that  fas- 
cinating Parnassus  on  wheels  which  made 
a  tour  through  New  England  the  past 
summer.  She  was  the  mother  of  four  chil- 
dren, from  whose  interests  she  looked  as 
completely  detached  as  a  stranger.  The 
eldest,  a  boy  of  nine,  proved  himself  a  fel- 
low of  resourcefulness  and  sagacity;  the 
youngest,  a  boy  of  four  years,  still  lived  in 
another  world — he  it  was  who  was  ex- 
pected to  learn  his  letters  from  a  book 
bought  for  the  purpose.  The  mother  did 
not  avail  herself  of  the  pleasant  privilege 
of  entering  the  Caravan  to  look  over  the 
books  with  her  children.  She  stood  lu 
judgment  on  the  sidewalk  before  a  large 
summer  hotel.  The  eldest  son  it  was  who 
entered  the  Caravan  and  brought  forth 
immediately  "The  Burgess  Bird  Book"  as 
a  book  they  would  all  enjoy.  "This  won't 
do,  Robert,  it  is  all  about  Peter  Rabbit 
and  I  am  sure  it  cannot  be  authentic,"  said 


22      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

his  mother  after  a  hasty  glance  at  the  text. 
She  entirely  ignored  the  fine  plates  of  birds 
by  Louis  Agassiz  Fuertes.  Fabre's  "Story 
Book  of  Science"  was  next  put  into  her 
hands  (not  by  Robert).  She  had  heard  of 
this  book  as  authentic  and  passed  it  on  to 
her  eldest  son  as  "a  very  fine  book"  and 
so  it  is,  but  it  did  not  interest  Robert. 
Without  comment  he  put  the  book  back 
into  his  mother's  hands  and  disappeared 
once  more  within  the  Caravan.  This  time 
he  stayed  longer  and  finally  emerged  with 
"Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known."  The 
mother  had  now  spent  all  the  time  she 
wished  to  spend  on  books.  She  had  heard 
that  Seton  was  "nearly  authentic"  and 
Robert  was  permitted  to  depart  with  the 
book  of  his  choice.  The  two  little  girls 
fell  heir  to  "The  Story  Book  of  Science" 
and  to  another  book  of  their  mother's  se- 
lection. They  had  no  apparent  desire  to 
explore  the  book  shelves  of  the  Caravan 
or  even  to  see  what  the  inside  of  a  caravan 
was  like.  Think  of  it,  dear  E.  V.  Lucas ! 
"The  inside  of  a  caravan!" 

As  we  rode  away  I  waved  to  the  littlest 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD      23 

one  from  the  back  window  of  the  Cara- 
van. That  wistful  little  person  waved 
feebly  in  return  and  then  climbed  wearily 
up  the  steps  of  the  hotel — to  learn  his 
letters — while  the  Caravan  moved  on  bear- 
ing away  the  few  books  which  belonged 
to  him.  I  had  a  rare  opportunity  to 
watch  the  people  who  came  and  carried 
books  away  with  them  that  afternoon. 
There  were  mothers  who  did  enter  the 
Caravan  to  see  what  it  was  like  inside  and 
there  were  a  few  who  came  with  a  child's 
delight  in  books  for  their  own  sake.  But 
far  too  many  came  there,  as  elsewhere,  to 
illustrate  their  borrowed  and  sadly  con- 
fused theories  concerning  children's  read- 
ing; to  inform,  instruct,  or  improve,  rather 
than  to  awaken,  enlighten,  and  enlarge  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  children  who  are  liv- 
ing in  a  new  century  and  a  different  world. 
It  is  the  didactic  period  of  the  l8th 
Century  in  France  and  England  and  of 
the  early  iQth  Century  in  New  England 
all  over  again.  What  can  be  done  about 
it?  It  is  often  necessary  to  persuade 
people  to  do  things  for  which  they  see 


24      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

no  reason — farmers  that  they  should  let 
new  roads  run  through  their  farms — par- 
ents that  dreams,  fancies,  humor,  are  the 
natural  heritage  of  childhood  and  are  at 
the  foundation  of  what  is  beautiful  and 
poetical  in  literature,  art,  and  human  ex- 
perience. Never  in  our  history  has  there 
been  greater  need  for  men  and  women  of 
vision  and  power  to  persuade.  These 
qualities  may,  and  assuredly  do,  take  form 
and  clarity  from  the  facts  of  science, 
but  they  live  only  in  literature  and  in 
the  aspirations  of  the  human  heart.  The 
natural  histories,  the  geographies,  the  uni- 
versal histories  of  one  generation  rarely 
survive  another.  The  plain  truths  of  to- 
day are  discounted  by  the  amazing  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  of  to-morrow.  We 
may  as  well  take  on  trust,  that  there  is 
truth  of  emotion  as  well  as  of  fact. 

Just  as  William  Blake,  the  poet-artist; 
Perrault,  the  French  lawyer;  Hans  Ander- 
sen, the  Danish  novelist;  Lewis  Carroll, 
the  English  mathematician;  Mark  Twain, 
the  American  philosopher  and  humorist — 
each  in  his  own  way — spoke  to  the  spirit 


ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD      25 

of  his  age  in  terms  of  a  child's  understand- 
ing, so  the  writers  of  our  time  and  the 
writers  of  future  times  must  continue  to 
speak  to  their  readers. 


CHAPTER  TWO 

WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN 

When  you  are  writing  for  children  do 
not  assume  a  style  for  the  occasion.  Think 
your*  best  and  write  your  best.  Let  the 
whole  thing  live. 

ANATOLE  FRANCE. 

TTTE  are  tired  of  substitutes  for  real- 
ities in  writing  for  children.  The 
trail  of  the  serpent  has  been  growing  more 
and  more  clearly  defined  in  the  flow  of 
children's  books  from  publisher  to  book- 
shop, library,  home,  and  school — a  trail 
strewn  with  patronage  and  propaganda, 
moralizing  self-sufficiency  and  sham  ef-( 
ficiency,  mock  heroics  and  cheap  optimism 
— above  all,  with  the  commonplace  in 
theme,  treatment,  and  language — the 
proverbial  stone  in  place  of  bread,  in  the 
name  of  education. 

We  have  all  remarked  these  tendencies, 
26 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN     27 

we  have  regretted  them,  we  have  done 
something  to  offset  them ;  but  in  the  main, 
we  continued  to  accept  them  until,  held 
up  by  the  shortage  of  paper  and  the  cost 
of  printing,  we  are  forced  to  a  more  dis- 
criminating consideration  of  values  in 
books. 

The  absence  of  any  body  of  sustained 
criticism  concerning  the  books  written  and 
published  from  year  to  year  for  the  chil- 
dren of  this  country  and  of  other  countries, 
has  naturally  resulted  in  setting  a  series 
of  fashions  in  children's  books  character- 
ized by  mediocrity,  condescension,  and  lack 
of  humor.  "To  be  dull  in  a  new  way"  has 
not  been  an  inspiring  slogan.  No  wonder 
contemporary  writers  of  distinction  hesi- 
tate to  enter  the  field  or  to  linger  in  it, 
even  with  the  alluring  prospect  held  out 
by  publishers  that  "a  perennially  success- 
ful children's  book  is  equivalent  to  an  old- 
age  pension."  "It  is  an  inspiriting  thing 
to  be  alive  and  trying  to  write  English," 
ays  Quiller-Couch,  but  I  confess  to  a  warm 
fellow  feeling  for  the  writer  who  does  not 
relish  being  labeled  "juvenile"  or  "adoles- 


28      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

cent"  by  his  peers.  Posterity  may  take 
his  fairy  tales,  his  fantasy,  his  "true  story" 
to  the  universal  heart,  but  he  will  not  be 
there  to  enjoy  the  sensation.  If  he  has 
done  anything  like  as  good  work  as  some 
of  the  authors  I  have  known,  he  deserves 
something  better  at  the  hands  of  publishers 
and  reviewers,  here  and  now,  than  the 
usual  announcement  of  "a  new  juvenile." 
Not  indiscriminate  praise  in  the  adver- 
tising of  all  of  the  children's  books  of  a 
season,  but  informed  criticism  of  good 
work  and  poor  work  is  the  need  of  our 
time.  Without  it  we  cannot  hope  for  any 
considerable  amount  of  distinctive,  orig- 
inal writing  in  a  field  whose  readers  are  its 
truest  critics. 

"It  will  never  do  foR  me  to  tell  that  I 
could  not  see  the  stuffs,"  says  the  faithful 
minister  in  'The  Emperor's  New  Clothes.' 
'But  he  has  got  nothing  on."  a  little  child 
cried  out.  'But  he  has  nothing  on!'  said 
the  whole  people  at  length.  The  emperor 
writhed,  for  he  knew  it  was  true,  but  he 
thought :  'The  procession  must  go  on,' ' 
And  so  we  go  on  writing  and  publishing 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN     29 

stories  in  which  the  characters  "having 
nothing  on,"  making  them  move  a  little  on 
stilts,  or  rollers,  or  leaving  them  static  in 
an  environment  without  reality;  and  fi- 
nally, robbing  the  encyclopedia  of  un- 
timely information  to  put  in  the  place  of 
lively  incident  and  dramatic  human  inter- 
est. 

Who  reaas  such  books  as  these*?  I  once 
asked  a  publisher.  "I  really  don't  know," 
he  replied.  "Books  of  that  description 
seem  to  have  a  place  on  all  juvenile  lists. 
I  had  supposed  they  were  peculiarly 
acceptable  to  public  libraries  and  school 
libraries.  They  are  dull,  of  course,  but 
children  must  learn  a  great  deal  from  them 
unconsciously."  Don't  you  believe  it !  It 
is  from  just  such  books,  presented  by  un- 
thinking parents  and  teachers,  that  many 
children  conceive  their  first  distaste  for 
reading  and  for  foreign  travel.  The  first 
and  last  requirement  of  any  author  or 
speaker  is  now,  as  it  always  has  been,  that 
he  should  interest  and  continue  to  inter- 
est his  audience.  In  his  "Art  of  Writing," 
Quiller-Couch  reminds  us  of  the  writer's 


30      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

obligation  to  put  himself  in  the  reader's 
place.  "All  reading  demands  an  effort," 
he  says.  "The  energy  and  good  will  which 
a  reader  brings  to  the  book"  should  not  go 
unrewarded.  "It  is  his  comfort,  his  con- 
venience, we  have  to  consult.  To  express 
ourselves  is  a  very  small  part  of  the  busi- 
ness ;  very  small  and  unimportant  as  com- 
pared with  impressing  ourselves."  "But 
isn't  that  in  one  of  Quiller-Couch's  lec- 
tures to  Oxford  students'?  I  didn't  know 
that  he  had  written  a  book  on  writing  for 
children."  Nor  has  he  to  my  knowledge, 
but  I  wish  every  writer  for  children  would 
read  what  he  says  about  style  and  jargon. 
'Great  authors  never  oppress  anybody 
with  condescensioin,"  he  reminds  us. 
"Language  shoftld  be  accurate  because  lan- 
guage expresses  thought  and  if  we  lack 
the  skill  to  speak  precisely  our  thought  will 
remain  confused  and  ill-defined." 

More  of  us  must  learn  from  France  to 
be  definite,  to  meet  effectively  such  a  new 
and  interesting  demand  as  that  for  the 
translation  into  the  French  language  of  a 
considerable  number  of  children's  books 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN     31 

written  in  English  and  not  previously 
translated.  Few  of  the  children's  books 
published  in  England  or  America  during 
the  past  five  years  will  bear  this  test.  It 
is  worth  thinking  about.  One  of  the  few, 
"A  Little  Boy  Lost,"  by  W.  H.  Hudson, 
was  published  more  than  five  years  ago  in 
England  but  was  unknown  in  the  United 
States  until  the  American  edition  appeared 
in  1918.  Two  other  books  which  come 
readily  to  mind  as  well  conceived  and 
written  in  good  prose  style  are,  Eliza  Orne 
White's  "The  Blue  Aunt"  and  "The  Fire- 
light Fairy  Book,"  by  Henry  B.  Beston. 
"Master  Simon's  Garden"  by  Cornelia 
Meigs  presents  possibilities  for  the  trans- 
lator, in  part  at  least.  Unlike  many  of 
our  stories  of  the  Pilgrims  it  has  atmos- 
phere and  charm. 

A  spirited  translation  of  a  children's 
book  into  another  language  calls  for  imag- 
ination and  skill. 

"All  a  nation's  sentiment  has  gone  into 
its  words,"  by  which  I  am  reminded  that 
we  have  long  needed  spirited  translations 
of  "Don  Quixote"  and  "The  Cid."  "Of 


32      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

all  the  books  in  the  world,"  says  Henry 
D wight  Sedgwick,  "Don  Quixote  is  the 
book  for  an  English-speaking  boy.  Don 
Quixote  is  a  man's  book  also,  but  it  has  a 
different  look  for  the  boy  and  the  man  of 
fifty.  .  .  .  The  boy  wants  two  qualities  in 
his  books,  enthusiasm  and  loyalty,  and  here 
he  has  them  jogging  on  side  by  side.  .  .  . 
With  the  revolving  years,  laughter  has 
come  to  take  its  place,  with  the  divine  at- 
tributes. Cervantes  wrote  about  life  and 
did  not  draw  any  final  conclusions."  There 
is  a  real  understanding  of  boy  nature  as 
well  as  a  fine  appreciation  of  Don  Quixote 
in  this  essay  of  Mr.  Sedgwick's :  "A  boy  is 
a  just  and  generous  reader,"  he  says.  "He 
reads  his  novelist  straight  through  from 
start  to  finish.  .  .  .  That  is  the  way 
novels  should  be  read.  Reading  the  first 
novel  of  one  of  the  great  men  of  litera- 
ture is  like  Aladdin  going  down  into  the 
magic  cave,  it  summons  a  genie  who 
straightway  spreads  a  wonderful  prospect 
before  you,  but  it  is  not  until  the  second 
or  third  book  that  you  understand  all  the 
power  of  the  master  slave." 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN     33 

"What  do  you  find  yourself  looking  for 
in  the  manuscripts  of  boys'  books  of  the 
present  day4?"  I  asked  a  publisher  who  had 
given  thought  to  the  matter.  "A  real  boy 
hero  kept  in  the  foreground  all  the  time. 
The  boy  reader  identifies  himself  with  the 
hero  you  know  and  everything  must  feed 
through  him.  The  hero  must  either  think 
of  things  himself  or  remember  that  he 
has  once  heard  that  under  the  very  cir- 
cumstances in  which  he  is  now  placed  he 
should  do  the  thing  he  is  doing,  etc.,  etc. 
Facts  must  be  tied  up  to  matters  of  genuine 
interest  to  boys.  Concrete  detail  must  be 
absolutely  accurate.  And,  of  course,"  he 
added,  "the  author  must  be  able  to  write." 

What  of  the  popular  author  of  the  pres- 
ent day"?  Have  we  made  any  advance  in 
this  direction*?  It  is  very  significant  that 
the  most  popular  author  of  boys'  books  in 
our  public  libraries — Joseph  Altsheler — 
should  have  written  over  again,  with  a 
fresh  sense  of  their  reality,  the  tales  of 
our  pioneer  life  and  struggle. 

Why  don't  the  boys  read  Cooper"?  Some 
of  them  do,  after  they  have  read  "The 


34      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Young  Trailers"  and  "The  Forest  Run- 
ners" by  Altsheler.  Many  of  them  do  not 
for  the  same  reason  that  many  of  us  do 
not  turn  to  Cooper  in  an  idle  hour.  But 
Altsheler  has  done  what  neither  Cooper 
nor  any  other  author  has  been  able  to  do 
— he  has  taken  the  average  American  boy 
into  the  wilderness  that  he  may  realize  his 
heritage  in  the  history  of  his  country  and 
take  his  place  there  more  intelligently. 
Boys  who  clamor  for  Altsheler  read  history 
and  biography  as  a  natural  and  necessary 
accompaniment.  Nor  do  they  neglect 
"Tom  Sawyer"  and  "Huckleberry  Finn" 
or  "The  Boys'  Life  of  Mark  Twain." 

Never  in  the  history  of  writing  for  boys 
has  an  author  attained  universal  popular- 
ity on  so  broad  a  foundation  of  allied  in- 
terests in  reading.  I  believe  the  secret  of 
Mr.  Altsheler's  appeal  lies  in  a  deep  love 
of  nature,  the  ability  to  select  from  his- 
torical sources  subjects  of  strong  human  in- 
terest, a  natural  gift  for  story-telling  and 
great  modesty.  The  best  of  the  popular 
writers  for  boys  are  being  stirred  by  a  new 
spirit  of  desire  to  be  truer  to  the  real  na- 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN     35 

ture  of  the  boy,  to  make  a  stronger  appeal 
to  his  sense  of  justice  and  fair  play. 

During  the  war  boys  rejected  stories  of 
the  war  and  asked,  just  as  we  did,  for  per- 
sonal narrative.  And  from  this  reading 
of  "the  real  thing"  in  books,  in  news- 
papers and  magazines,  and  in  letters  from 
their  brothers  or  friends  in  the  camps  and 
at  the  front,  they  learned  very  rapidly 
some  of  the  things  which  must  go  into 
the  making  of  the  American  soldier  of  to- 
day. They  began  to  see  the  difference  be- 
tween the  old  bluff,  bluster  and  bragga- 
docio fostered  by  so  many  writers  for  boys 
and  the  true  American  spirit.  As  they 
have  rejected  that  type  of  informational 
book  in  story  form  in  which  scientific  or 
mechanical  information  is  presented  by  a 
"fake  uncle,"  and  are  demanding  the  most 
clearly  written  and  up-to-date  books  on 
engineering,  aeronautics  and  submarines, 
so  I  believe  they  will  reject  stories  and  his- 
tories which  are  not  well  conceived  and 
well  written. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  language 
of  his  book  was  considered  of  small  ac- 


36      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

count  by  the  boy,  but  interest  has  been 
awakened  to  a  degree  which  might  sur- 
prise us  if  we  did  not  stop  to  reflect  on 
how  popular  Kipling,  Stevenson,  Dumas, 
Poe,  Bret  Harte  and  other  authors  have 
grown  in  a  generation.  Language  means 
something  now.  It  is  one  of  the  things 
we  are  fighting  to  preserve. 

Boys  who  read  in  the  morning  papers 
of  such  wonders  as  the  cruise  of  the  Em- 
den,  the  coming  of  the  Deutschland  and 
the  flights  across  the  Atlantic,  want  all  the 
imaginings  of  a  Jules  Verne  and  some- 
thing more  in  actuality.  Authors  must 
take  time  to  originate  new  plots  and  to 
create  heroes  so  well  drawn  as  to  require 
no  words  of  praise  from  them — heroes 
who  leave  one  sure  that  there  are  other 
worlds  to  conquer.  Writers  for  boys  of 
the  new  America  must  not  continue  to  feed 
our  provincial  tendencies. 

This  is  still  more  true  in  writing  for 
girls,  because  the  books  ordinarily  writ- 
ten for  girls  are  very  inferior  in  theme 
and  treatment  to  the  books  written  for 
boys.  Nor  are  there,  as  yet,  encouraging 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN     37 

signs  among  writers  for  girls  that  growth 
and  change  in  girl  life  and  its  interests  are 
receiving  as  thoughtful  attention.  They 
are  still  busy,  even  in  these  great  days, 
with  self-analysis  and  the  reformation  of 
characters  of  their  own  invention.  There 
has  been  no  real  creation  of  girl  charac- 
ter since  "Rebecca."  No  girl  has  been 
free  to  live  her  own  life.  She  has  been 
at  the  mercy  of  some  author  who  had  her 
life  all  mapped  out  for  her  before  she  en- 
tered the  book  and  placed  her  there 
merely  to  respond  to  the  popular  demand 
for  certified  characters,  presented  singly  or 
in  groups  of  abstractions. 

Stories  for  girls,  even  when  cast  in  an 
out-of-door  setting,  or  projected  from  the 
old  boarding-school  to  the  modern  college, 
continue  to  be  introspective,  sentimental, 
moralizing  or  didactic.  The  deluge  of 
"glad  books"  following  in  the  wake  of 
"Pollyana"  has  given  pause  for  reflection. 
"Pollyana"  is  more  wholesome  than  "El- 
sie Dinsmore,"  but  may  she  not  be  quite 
as  far  from  reality*?  "Understood  Betsy" 
was  a  hopeful  glimpse  of  what  may  yet  be 


38      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

done  by  a  competent  writer,  but  "Under- 
stood Betsy"  would  have  been  a  better 
story  and  would  have  made  a  larger  ap- 
peal to  girls  had  educational  theory  and 
practice  been  left  out  of  it. 

Is  there  not  a  connection  between  this 
poverty  in  stories  of  girl  life  and  the  lack 
of  literature  interesting  to  girls  concern- 
ing the  lives  of  women*?  The  actual  life 
of  girls  and  women  is  so  much  more  in- 
teresting than  is  commonly  represented  in 
books  written  for  their  reading  that  it  gives 
us  the  right  to  ask  something  better  for 
the  girl  of  to-day.  She  cannot  afford  to 
waste  her  emotions  nor  her  time.  She  has 
need  of  every  resource  that  may  fortify 
her  spirit,  sharpen  her  native  wit  and  chal- 
lenge the  full  powers  of  mind  and  heart 
to  meet  life  where  she  finds  it. 

What  do  you  find  yourself  looking  for 
in  the  manuscripts  of  girls'  books  of  the 
present  day*?  This  time  I  asked  the  ques- 
tion of  a  children's  librarian.  "For  real 
stories — of  city  life,  as  well  as  of  coun- 
try life— stories  as  objective  and  interest- 
ing as  books  written  for  boys.  Why  do 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN    39 

the  writers  for  girls  always  send  their 
heroines  to  the  country  to  be  made  over, 
or  bring  the  country  girls  to  the  city  to  re- 
shape the  artificial  lives  of  their  cousins?" 
Why,  indeed.  I  have  often  thought 
about  this  myself  since  so  large  a  propor- 
tion of  readers  live  in  cities  and  towns  and 
human  nature  is  the  same  the  world  over. 
"Town  life,"  says  Sarah  Orne  Jewett, 
"will  ever  have  in  its  gift  the  spirit  of 
the  present."  Her  Betty  Leicester  has 
achieved  the  rare  state  of  being  natural 
even  though  she  has  just  come  back  from 
Europe  and  we  first  meet  her  in  the  din- 
ing-room of  Young's  hotel.  It  is  the 
country  girl — the  old  friend  she  meets  at 
Tideshead — who  assumes  the  artificial 
manner.  This  is  quite  possible  as  all  of 
us  realize  who  have  known  intimately  the 
lives  of  both  country  girls  and  city  girls. 
Simplicity  and  sincerity  do  not  spring 
from  the  soil  or  from  educational  experi- 
ments, but  from  the  human  heart.  Re- 
becca. Q.f  Sunnybrook  Farm,  though  speak- 
ing to  a  larger  audience,  is  of  the  same 
stuff  as  Betty  Leicester.  The  child  who 


40      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

journeyed  with  Dickens  over  a  Maine 
railroad  had  already  discovered  a  world 
outside  of  New  England. 

Writers  of  books  for  girls  will  gain 
ideas  and  background  from  reading  the 
stories  of  an  earlier  time  in  contrast  with 
those  of  the  present.  E.  V.  Lucas  made 
a  representative  selection  of  these  stories 
a  few  years  ago  and  in  his  introduction 
to  "Old  Fashiond  Tales"  reminds  us  that 
the  children  of  those  days  expected  di- 
dacticism. "It  was  part  of  the  game," 
he  says.  "The  camaraderie,  the  good  fel- 
lowship, the  equality,  that  now  subsists 
between  children  and  so  many  of  their  el- 
ders was  then  as  unknown  as  electric 
light.  Children  were  still  the  immature 
young  of  man ;  they  had  not  been  discov- 
ered as  personalities,  temperaments,  indi- 
viduals." But  the  authors  whose  work 
has  survived  wrote  to  be  interesting — 
"from  a  genuine  wish  to  give  the  nursery 
a  good  time."  "That,"  says  Mr.  Lucas, 
"is  the  whole  thing — the  beginning,  the 
middle  and  the  end.  Without  it  no  chil- 
dren's book  can  live."  Between  Maria 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN     41 

Edgeworth  and  Mrs.  Ewing  came  Charles 
Dickens  with  his  "most  perfect  memory  of 
childhood."  "Dickens  was  so  dramatic/' 
says  Mrs.  Meynell,  "that  he  could  not  see 
the  somber  children  of  discipline  observ- 
ing while  the  grown-up  people  ate  (Pip 
at  the  breakfast-table  of  Mr.  Pumble- 
chook!)  without  thinking  their  thoughts. 
Neither  Victor  Hugo  nor  George  Eliot," 
she  continues  in  her  penetrating  sketch  of 
childhood  past  and  present,  "has  written 
quite  like  Dickens,  from  within  the 
boundaries  of  a  child's  nature,  from  a 
child's  stage  of  progress,  and  without  the 
preoccupation  and  attitude  of  older  ex- 
perience." 

Hugh  Walpole  has  paid  more  than  one 
tribute  to  Mrs.  Ewing  in  "Jeremy."  It 
is  not  "Jackanapes"  alone  we  feel  there. 
Miss  Edgeworth  had  the  faculty  for 
dramatizing  her  story  and  her  style  is  so 
direct,  and  clear,  and  strong  as  to  blow 
the  cobwebs  from  the  modern  writer,  or 
critic,  of  children's  books.  But  Mrs. 
Ewing  was,  above  everything  else,  an 
artist,  showing  us  what  she  saw  and  felt 


42      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

in  exquisite  pictures — so  graphic,  said  her 
friend  Randolph  Caldecott,  as  not  to  need 
illustrating.  Mrs.  Swing's  love  of  gar- 
dens, of  painting,  her  gift  of  conferring 
personalities  upon  animals  and  toys,  as 
well  as  upon  children,  stands  out  from  her 
books  as  a  light  to  the  reader  who  would 
relive  his  childhood.  I  have  just  read  for 
the  first  time  her  story  called  Reka  Dom 
— River  House,  she  tells  us,  is  the  Eng- 
lish name  for  this  best  loved  home  of  a 
child  who  had  known  more  than  one 
home — "the  home  of  the  'Little  Rus- 
sians/ whose  history  was  our  history."  I 
am  struck  with  the  beauty  and  depth  of 
this  story  and  its  power  of  suggestion.  The 
story  is  a  true  romance,  packed  with  inci- 
dent and  characterization,  revealing,  as 
Mrs.  Ewing  never  hesitated  to  reveal,  the 
faults  and  foibles  as  well  as  the  virtues 
of  older  people  in  their  relations  with  chil- 
dren and  young  people.  The  writer  must 
read  Mrs.  E wing's  stories  over  and  over 
to  get  their  full  value  and  read  them  in 
contrast  with  other  stories.  The  founda- 
tion of  good  writing  or  of  sound  criticism 


WRITING  FOR  CHILDREN     43 

rests  upon  comparative  reading  and  re- 
flection. Too  many  children's  books  have 
been  written  out  of  empty  minds. 

In  one  of  her  informal  letters  to  Mrs. 
Fields,  Miss  Jewett  gives  in  simple  terms 
the  substance  of  doctrine  for  those  who 
would  write  stories :  "I  should  read  half  a 
dozen  really  good  and  typical  stories  over 
and  over!  ...  I  could  write  much  about 
these  things,  but  I  do  not  much  believe 
that  it  is  worth  while  to  say  anything,  but 
keep  at  work!  If  something  comes  into 
a  writer's  or  a  painter's  mind  the  only 
thing  is  to  try  it,  to  see  what  one  can  do 
with  it,  and  give  it  a  chance  to  show  if  it 
has  real  value.  Story-writing  is  always 
experimental,  just  as  a  water-color  sketch 
is,  and  that  something  which  does  itself,  is 
the  vitality  of  it.  I  think  we  must  know 
what  good  work  is  before  we  can  do  good 
work  of  our  own,  and  so  I  say,  study  work 
that  the  best  judges  have  called  good  and 
see  why  it  is  good;  whether  it  is,  in  that 
particular  story,  the  reticence  or  the  brav- 
ery of  speech,  the  power  of  suggestion  that 
is  in  it,  or  the  absolute  clearness  and  final- 


44      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

ity  of  revelation;  whether  it  sets  you 
thinking,  or  whether  it  makes  you  see  a 
landscape  with  a  live  human  figure  liv- 
ing its  life  in  the  foreground." 

It  goes  without  saying  that  every 
writer  must  have  his  own  method.  All 
this  applies  as  well  to  writing  for  chil- 
dren as  to  writing  for  grown  people. 
Standards  have  been  set  which  may  not 
be  ignored  if  a  children's  book  is  to  live, 
but  standards  are  not  enough — the  writer 
for  children  must  connect  with  life,  he 
must  not  scorn  to  belong  to  the  genera- 
tion for  which  he  writes. 

When  we  have  taken  to  heart  that  chil- 
dren and  boys  and  girls  in  their  'teens  are 
in  themselves  and  of  themselves  far  more 
interesting  than  anything  which  may  be 
written  for  their  benefit  or  improvement 
— that  writing  for  their  reading  is  an  art, 
and  as  such  must  be  cherished,  that  it  can 
be  sustained  only  by  vigorous  and  in- 
formed criticism,  we  shall  have  taken  a 
very  forward  step  in  education  as  well  as 
in  book  production. 


CHAPTER  THREE 

A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT 

"Here  is  a  booke  made  after  mine  own 
heart,  good  print,  good  tale,  good  picture 
and  good  sense,  good  learning  and  good 

labour  of  old  days" 

one  except  Dr.  Crothers  in  another 
"Miss  Muffet's  Christmas  Party" 
could  possibly  do  justice  to  the  authors, 
artists,  and  publishers  who  have  joined 
forces  to  make  one  of  the  most  attractive 
and  varied  outputs  of  children's  books 
within  my  remembrance.  American  pub- 
lishers stepped  bravely  into  the  breach 
caused  by  the  conditions  attending  Eu- 
ropean production  and  importation,  and 
have  given  us  a  number  of  books  so  good 
as  to  claim  fuller  and  more  illuminating 
comment  than  is  possible  in  this  rapid  sur- 
vey. 

In  the  light  of  the  interest  and  antici- 
45 


46      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

pation  stirred  by  the  announcement  that 
"The  Springtide  of  Life,  Poems  of  Child- 
hood," by  Swinburne  was  to  be  issued  in 
an  edition  illustrated  by  Arthur  Rackham 
as  a  holiday  book,  I  would  recall  Swin- 
burne's praise  of  "The  Golden  Age"  of 
Kenneth  Grahame — "one  of  the  few  books 
which  are  well-nigh  too  praiseworthy  for 
praise.  The  art  of  writing  adequately 
and  accepti vely  about  children" — and  he 
might  well  have  added,  for  them — "is 
among  the  rarest  and  most  precious  of  all 
arts." 

At  no  time  in  the  year  is  this  truth 
brought  home  so  convincingly  as  during 
the  Christmas  holiday  season  when  to  the 
parents  and  friends  of  children  the  gift  of 
a  child's  book  may  mean  much  to  a  whole 
family.  It  was  out  of  the  consciousness 
of  the  need  of  many  grown-ups  to 
strengthen  or  to  recover  their  touch  with 
childhood  that  a  custom  known  as  "The 
Christmas  Exhibit"  sprang  up  in  public 
libraries  about  twenty  years  ago.  The 
idea  grew  very  naturally  out  of  the  con- 
ception of  the  children's  librarian  that  her 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  47 

work  had  set  her  in  the  midst  of  a  great 
family  of  children  of  widely  different 
tastes  and  capacities  for  reading.  She 
shared  the  confidence  of  children  who  were 
being  deluged  at  Christmas  with  all  sorts 
of  books  they  didn't  like  and  of  those  who 
longed  in  vain  for  books  they  couldn't 
have.  She  shared  the  confidence  of  par- 
ents who  wondered  why  their  children 
never  read  the  books  in  sets,  the  prize 
books,  the  books  so  confidently  recom- 
mended as  "the  best"  for  the  age  of  the 
boy  or  girl  in  question.  She  shared  the 
confidence  of  authors  and  publishers  as  to 
why  their  books  were  or  were  not  sustained 
in  sales.  She  haunted  the  book  depart- 
ments to  watch  the  sales  at  holiday  time. 
She  learned  a  number  of  things  and 
among  them  was  toleration  for  books 
which  did  not  meet  the  standards  she  had 
been  accustomed  to  apply  to  books  to  be 
purchased  by  the  library.  She  saw  that 
mere  display  of  books  was  not  enough, 
that  there  must  be  a  discriminating  seleo* 
tion  from  the  books  of  the  year  placed  side 
by  side  with  the  old  and  tried  favorites, 


48      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

and  that  the  books  needed  to  be  "opened 
up"  to  the  grown-ups  in  the  presence  of 
children  who  were  not  their  own  "excep- 
tional" children. 

There  were  people  who  needed  to  sit 
down  comfortably  and  talk  about  chil- 
dren's books  with  some  one  who  was 
incapable  of  being  shocked  by  any  admis- 
sion of  freakishness,  or  apparent  illiter- 
acy, or  even  greatly  surprised  by  surpas- 
sing intellectual  feats  on  the  part  of 
children  of  bookish  parents.  There  were 
other  parents  who  were  entirely  ignorant 
of  books,  who  wanted  their  children  to 
have  what  had  been  denied  them  in  child- 
hood. No  phase  of  work  in  the  modern 
public  library  has  presented  so  many  op- 
portunities for  an  enlarged  outlook  upon 
the  writing,  the  illustration,  the  printing, 
the  selling,  and  the  reading  of  books  for 
children,  since  children  as  well  as  grown 
people  have  been  asked  to  comment  freely 
upon  the  books  selected  for  the  Christmas 
exhibit.  Indeed,  I  have  come  to  feel  that 
no  reviewer  should  approach  the  children's 
books  of  the  year  without  calling  upon 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  49 

at  least  one  child,  preferably  not  his  own, 
to  blaze  a  trail.  And  so  I  invited  Edou- 
ard,  aged  nine,  into  an  office  so  crowded 
with  reviewer's  copies  as  to  daze  every 
grown-up  who  had  entered  it  before  him. 
Edouard  is  the  son  of  an  engineer  who  is 
likewise  a  philosopher  and  a  rare  spinner 
of  yarns. 

"My  father,"  says  Edouard,  "can  make 
a  book  seem  interesting  when  it  isn't.  Lots 
of  things  you  want  to  know  you  can't  find 
in  books,  not  even  in  The  Book  of  Knowl- 
edge,' but  my  father  has  done  them  or 
else  he  knows  them  in  his  imagination" 

Edouard  attends  a  public  school  and.  is 
in  the  fourth  grade;  he  is  a  frequent  vis- 
itor to  the  children's  room  of  the  library. 
He  learned  to  read  very  suddenly,  burst 
into  reading,  as  I  have  known  many  chil- 
dren to  do  after  much  poring  over  pic- 
tures. He  is  a  boy  of  more  than  average 
intelligence  concerning  things  mechanical 
and  scientific,  he  has  a  keen  sense  of  hu- 
mor, a  rare  appreciation  of  genuine  fairy- 
tales, and  his  sympathies  are  quick  and 
warm.  He  is  a  philosopher  in  one  of  the 


50      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

most  realistic  stages  of  his  development. 

The  sight  of  books  piled  high  in  unfa- 
miliar surroundings  did  not  daze  him  nor 
did  it  call  forth  as  it  might  from  one  of 
those  remarkable  children  in  "On  Our 
Hill"  a  speech  yielding  "perfect  Shake- 
spearian criticism"  or  clever  quotations 
from  his  favorite  authors.  That  he  does 
not  despair  of  an  age  in  which  the  chip- 
munk takes  a  place  in  the  scheme  of  life 
is  quite  clear.  He  paid  no  tribute  to  lit- 
erary tradition.  He  surveyed  the  array 
calmly  and  then  spoke: 

"Is  there  a  book  here  by  Thornton  Bur- 
gess?" 

Without  waiting  for  an  answer  he  in- 
stinctively put  his  hand  under  a  great  pile 
of  Boy  Scout  and  war  books  and  drew 
forth  "Mother  West  Wind  Where  Sto- 
ries" and  clasped  it  to  his  heart. 

"If  I  had  a  million  dollars  I  would  en- 
gage Thornton  Burgess  to  write  all  the 
stories  I  could  read." 

Then  followed  a  declaration  of  Edou- 
ard's  passionate  love  for  "Danny  Meadow 
Mouse"  and  all  his  associates.  If  he 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  5 1> 

could  live  always  in  the  country  as 
"Danny  Meadow  Mouse,"  he  would  al- 
most be  willing  to  change  his  own  being; 
but  if  he  must  continue  his  existence  as  a 
boy  he  believed  he  would  rather  live  on 
in  New  York  where  he  could  see  "Twenty 
Thousand  Leagues  Under  the  Sea"  in  the 
novies,  read  of  the  little  people  of  meadow 
and  forest  in  winter,  and  watch  their  life 
in  the  long  summer  vacation  spent  in  the 
country. 

"Are  there  no  other  books  which  tell  of 
the  country,  of  birds,  of  animals,  in  a  way 
you  like?' 

"Thornton  Burgess  can  put  it  all  over 
the  others,"  was  his  reply,  "because  he 
sees  what  I  see  and  I  understand  his  lan- 
guage." 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  analyze  or  ex- 
plain this  appeal  of  Thornton  Burgess  nor 
answer  the  question  sometimes  raised  as  to 
whether  he  is  not  writing  too  many  books 
of  a  kind  in  a  manner  somewhat  monoto- 
nous to  older  readers.  For  thousands  of 
boys  younger  and  older  than  Edouard  he 
has  lifted  the  curse  from  nature  study  by 


52      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

putting  them  in  touch  with  life  as  they 
see  it.  His  "Happy  Jack"  with  its  dedi- 
cation to  Dr.  Hornaday  as  "the  life-long 
champion  of  Happy  Jack  Squirrel"  is  il- 
lustrated by  Harrison  Cady  and  appears 
in  a  form  which  is  new  to  those  familiar 
with  the  small  volumes  of  the  Bedtime 
Series. 

"The  Brownies  and  Prince  Florimel" 
next  caught  Edouard's  eye;  he  wishes,  as 
I  believe  many  others  will  wish  also,  that 
Palmer  Cox  had  written  a  shorter  story 
and  made  more  pictures.  "For  you  don't 
read  'The  Brownies'  very  much — you 
chase  the  policeman  or  the  Chinaman  and 
let  the  pictures  tell  the  story." 

"After  They  Came  Out  of  the  Ark"  was 
very  amusing  to  us  both  and  is,  I  think, 
the  most  imaginative  bit  of  work  Mr. 
Boyd  Smith  has  done  for  some  time.  The 
text  is  a  little  subtle  for  most  children 
but  the  animals  need  no  text  since  they 
put  one  very  much  in  the  spirit  of  JEsop, 
La  Fontaine  and  Uncle  Remus  as  well  as 
with  the  story  of  Noah  as  told  in  the  Bible. 

Edouard  cannot  read  "Uncle  Remus" 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  53 

and  was  not  impressed  by  the  sight  of 
"Uncle  Remus  Returns"  with  the  ten 
stories  we  have  not  had  before.  When 
asked  if  he  would  like  to  hear  one,  he  chose 
"Tar  Baby"  instead  of  a  new  one  and  said 
there  was  one  Southern  book  he  had  read 
over  and  over — "Diddie,  Dumps  and 
Tot." 

"Twin  Travelers  in  South  America" 
looked  promising  but  failed  to  hold  his  in- 
terest for  more  than  a  hasty  glance  at  the 
pictures.  "I  think  my  teacher  would  like 
that  book  because  it  seems  like  a  geog- 
raphy trying  to  be  a  story." 

Edouard's  teacher  reads  aloud  but  "she 
reads  a  great  deal  to  please  herself."  Her 
introduction  to  "Alice  in  Wonderland" 
has  been  such  that  Edouard  at  present  re- 
gards it  as  a  book  for  "girls  only."  This 
explains  in  part  his  first  quick  rejection 
of  "The  Sandman's  Forest"  by  Louis 
Dodge,  one  of  the  most  distinctive  and 
original  books  of  the  year  but  presuppos- 
ing some  literary  inheritance  derived  from 
infusions  of  Lewis  Carrol],,  Kipling,  Bar- 
rie,  and  Kenneth  Grahame.  Edouard 


54      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

said  it  "began  in  a  very  silly  way."  He 
makes  a  great  point  of  the  beginning  of 
books  he  expects  to  read  himself.  I  did 
not  press  the  claim  of  this  one  but  two 
days  later  called  his  attention  to  one  of 
Paul  Bransom's  pictures  of  the  forest  and 
read  a  page  of  the  story.  "That  sounds 
very  interesting.  May  I  borrow  that 
book?" 

I  well  remember  introducing  "The  Jun- 
gle Books"  to  children  in  a  similar  way 
before  Kipling  became  popular  with 
American  children.  I  read  from  Padraic 
Colum's  "The  Boy  Who  Knew  What  the 
Birds  Said"  and  this,  he  said,  was  like 
the  old  fairy-tales,  as  indeed  it  is  in  its 
poetical  rendering.  Mr.  Colum  is  also 
giving  us  "The  Children's  Homer,"  com- 
bining for  the  first  time  the  story  of  the 
"Iliad"  with  the  story  of  the  "Odyssey" 
an  a  version  closely  following  Andrew 
Lang. 

"Little  Brother  and  Little  Sister  and 
Other  Tales  by  the  Brothers  Grimm,"  with 
its  illustrations  in  color  and  in  black  and 
white,  by  Arthur  Rackham,  finds  a  place 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  55 

already  made  for  it  by  an  earlier  selection 
of  tales  illustrated  by  the  same  artist.  The 
two  volumes  contain  about  one  hundred 
of  the  best-loved  tales  in  an  authentic  ver- 
sion. A  re-rendering  of  old  fairy-tales 
from  various  sources  by  a  well-known  au- 
thor is  to  be  found  in  Katharine  Pyle's 
"Mother's  Nursery  Tales,"  with  illustra- 
tions in  color  and  in  black  and  white  by 
the  artist-author. 

The  picture  of  "Goldilocks  and  the 
Three  Bears"  is  the  only  satisfying  one  I 
have  ever  seen.  "She  knows  how  to  draw 
bears  in  a  family,"  was  Edouard's  com- 
ment as  he  compared  it  with  an  illustra- 
tion for  the  same  story  by  another  artist 
of  which  he  said,  "These  bears  are  not  a 
family,  they  are  just  colored  to  match 
the  rest  of  the  picture."  One  could  wish 
Katharine  Pyle  had  not  softened  some  of 
the  older  folk-tales,  and  also  that  certain 
titles  had  been  given  the  familiar  form  of 
"The  Bremen  Town  Musicians,"  "Chicken 
Little"  instead  of  "Chicken  Diddle"— but 
one  must  pay  warm  tribute  to  the  strength 
of  her  drawing  and  the  childlike  quality 


56      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

always  to  be  found  in  her  work  for  chil- 
dren. Katharine  Pyle's  "Christmas  An- 
gel" is  always  a  favorite  book  at  Christ- 
mas time — and  by  this  I  am  reminded  that 
no  Christmas  story  or  collection  of  stories 
has  come  to  my  notice  this  year. 

We  have  good  reason  to  expect  from 
the  author  of  "Tales  of  the  Punjab"  an 
interesting  selection  and  rendition  of  fa- 
miliar fairy-tales.  The  opening  story  in 
"English  Fairy  Tales"  by  Flora  Annie 
Steel  is  a  tale  of  "St.  George  of  Merrie 
England."  Stories  from  the  French, 
German  and  other  sources  are  included 
and  the  attractive  volume  in  traditional 
red  and  gold  is  illustrated  by  Arthur  Rack- 
ham. 

"Canadian  Wonder  Tales"  is  sugges- 
tive of  Canada's  romantic  past  and  her 
Indian  life.  The  stories  were  chosen  by 
Cyrus  Macmillan  from  his  larger  collec- 
tion of  folk-tales  and  folk-songs  "that  the 
children  of  the  land  may  know  something 
of  the  tradition  of  the  mysterious  past  in 
which  their  forefathers  dwelt  and  la- 
bored." Such  titles  as  "The  Indian  Cin- 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  57 

derella,"  "Glooskap's  Country"  and  "The 
Northern  Lights"  may  appeal  to  the  boy 
and  girl  reader  above  the  age  of  ten  or 
twelve.  The  illustrations  by  George 
Sheringham  add  very  materially  to  the  in- 
terest of  the  tales,  which  are  somewhat 
academic  in  their  rendering.  An  excellent 
translation  of  "Serbian  Fairy  Tales,"  the 
work  of  Madame  E.  L.  Mijatovich,  with 
illustrations  by  Sidney  Stanley,  is  deserv- 
ing of  more  careful  notice.  "Papalluga" 
is  the  Serbian  "Cinderella"  and  there  are 
characteristic  versions  of  other  tales  fa- 
miliar in  many  lands. 

Since  no  new  books  may  be  expected 
from  Russia,  we  may  mention  here  the 
great  charm  of  the  three  volumes  of  "Rus- 
sian Picture  Tales"  by  Valery  Carrick. 
They  are  very  humorous  and  immediately 
appealing  to  young  children.  Frances 
Jenkins  Olcott,  whose  careful  work  as  ed- 
itor and  adapter  has  been  in  evidence  for 
several  years,  has  edited  a  collection  en- 
titled "The  Book  of  Elves  and  Fairies." 

Quite  unexpectedly  Edouard  was  held 
captive  by  "Jane,  Joseph  and  John,"  that 


58      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

enchanting  trio  of  children  born  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly  Press.  Mr.  Bergengren 
has  done  something  quite  fresh  and  orig- 
inal and  wholly  in  the  spirit  of  child  play 
in  the  verses  ascribed  now  to  John,  now 
to  Joseph,  and  now  to  Jane.  The  chil- 
dren are  made  very  realistic  and  very 
childlike  by  the  colored  illustrations  of 
Maurice  E.  Day.  The  marginal  decora- 
tions in  black  and  white  by  T.  B.  Hap- 
good  give  a  very  charming  setting  to  the 
verse  on  each  page  and  the  typography  is 
a  delight  to  tired  eyes.  It  is  difficult  to 
express  in  a  word  the  charm  of  these  verses 
but  I  think  it  lies  in  their  projection  of 
real  children  at  play  into  an  up-to-date 
world  of  their  own.  Edouard  liked  all  of 
the  verses  but  returned  again  and  again 
to  "The  Flood,"  "The  Home  Guard," 
"The  Transport,"  "The  Policeman,"  and 
"The  Western  Front." 

His  teacher  sometimes  reads  poetry,  he 
says,  but  it  is  always  sad  or  silly — never 
like  children  playing  or  anything  funny 
like  "A  Very  Exceptional  Eskimo"  which 
he  read  from  "The  Shining  Ship"  by  Isa- 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  59 

bel  Mackay — a  most  attractive  book  as  to 
cover  and  general  appearance,  containing 
verse  of  varying  merit  and  limited  appeal 
to  children. 

There  was  no  other  book  of  verse  to 
claim  our  attention  save  "Every-child's 
Mother  Goose"  with  its  introduction  by 
Carolyn  Wells.  The  illustrations  by 
Edith  Wilson  are  from  photographs  of 
dolls  dressed  to  represent  the  characters 
and  are  suggestive  of  the  Mother  Goose 
illustrated  in  similar  manner  by  Patten 
Beard  last  year.  It  has  been  our  experi- 
ence that  this  form  of  illustration  has  more 
interest  for  grown  people  than  for  chil- 
dren. One  could  wish  that  so  distinctive 
a  selection  of  Mother  Goose  rhymes  as 
Carolyn  Wells  has  made  might  have  been 
illustrated  by  an  artist  with  "the  sense  of 
nonsense."  Did  Leslie  Brooke  exhaust  it 
when  he  made  the  pictures  for  Andrew 
Lang's  "Nursery  Rhyme  Book"? 

The  well-loved  Mother  Goose  of  Kate 
Greenaway  shares  the  fate  of  her  other 
charming  books  in  being  out  of  print  this 
Christmas.  A  very  attractive  Mother 


60      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Goose  is  the  new  and  small  edition  of  the 
one  illustrated  by  Jessie  Willcox  Smith 
some  years  ago. 

We  would  not  press  too  insistently  the 
question  of  size  in  the  make-up  of  books 
— we  think  there  should  be  variety  in  size 
as  in  other  matters  of  form,  but  is  there 
not  a  danger  of  making  the  large  book  too 
large  and  possibly  reacting  upon  public 
taste  in  such  a  manner  as  to  lessen  the 
value  of  those  refinements  in  make-up 
which  publishers  have  been  at  such  pains 
to  secure?  When  the  war  restrictions  are 
lifted,  color,  printing,  typography,  and  the 
quality  of  papers  and  boards  used  in  the 
making  of  children's  books  are  sure  to  re- 
ceive more  careful  attention.  Mean- 
while, very  commendable  attempts  are  be- 
ing made  to  tide  over  this  difficult  period. 

Miss  Lamprey's  "In  the  Days  of  the 
Guild"  appears  at  a  psychological  mo- 
ment, and  may  well  be  used  to  kindle  ap- 
preciation of  book-making  as  of  the  other 
arts.  The  stories  are  very  simply  and 
charmingly  told  under  the  evident  influ- 
ence of  "Puck  of  Pook's  Hill"  and  "Re- 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  61 

wards  and  Fairies,"  those  two  books  which 
breathe  the  very  spirit  of  English  history. 
The  illustrations  are  negligible  but  the 
book  itself  is  a  distinct  addition  to  re- 
sources which  have  been  limited  hitherto 
to  chapters  in  histories. 

A  new  edition  of  "Hans  Brinker"  with 
illustrations  in  color  by  Maginel  Enright 
is  in  very  good  type  and  cannot  fail  to 
make  an  appeal  to  children. 

"The  Short  History  of  Discovery,  Writ- 
ten and  Illustrated  with  a  Match"  by 
Hendrik  Willem  Van  Loon,  has  interested 
many  children  as  a  picture  book  and  is  a 
delight  to  the  grown-up.  It  is  intended, 
as  the  author  says,  to  be  taken  as  an  "his- 
torical appetizer"  and  suggests  no  end  of 
questions  to  an  imaginative  child  who  is 
too  often  bored  by  the  facts  presented  to 
him  in  the  form  of  historical  and  geo- 
graphical readers.  Just  why  it  reminds 
me  of  the  "Just  So  Stories"  I  cannot  tell, 
but  it  does. 

Edouard's  comment  on  a  new  edition 
of  "Joan  of  Arc"  of  Boutet  de  Monvel  was 
brief:  "I  miss  the  best  pictures."  For 


62      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

this  book  in  the  French  edition  he  con- 
ceived an  ardent  attachment  when  he  was 
between  six  and  seven  years  old.  He 
would  look  at  the  pictures  by  the  hour  and 
then  would  bring  groups  of  boys  to  whom 
he  would  show  them  and  tell  the  story. 
Mr.  Dugald  Stewart  Walker's  "Dream 
Boats"  with  its  delicate  illustrations  in 
color  and  in  black  and  white  made  no  ap- 
peal to  him.  Both  in  conception  and  in 
rendering  this  book  seems  to  have  been 
planned  for  an  audience  of  somewhat 
sophisticated  children.  The  book  is  at- 
tractive in  its  make-up. 

Beatrix  Potter's  "The  Tale  of  Johnny 
Town-Mouse"  is  a  new  volume  in  the 
"Peter  Rabbit"  series.  There  are  now 
about  fifteen  of  these  little  books,  and 
children  who  like  them  will  always  want 
the  latest  one  regardless  of  whether  it 
seems  to  be  as  good  as  the  others.  There 
are  some  series — and  "The  French  Twins" 
by  Lucy  Fitch  Perkins  belongs  to  another 
of  them — which  bid  fair  to  hold  their  own 
as  the  work  of  the  same  artist-author.  One 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  63 

wishes  this  were  equally  true  of  stories  in 
series  for  older  boys  and  girls. 

There  is  rather  a  strong  group  of  stories 
of  Indian  life,  including  "Lone  Bull's 
Mistake,"  by  James  Schultz,  the  story  of 
the  breaking  of  a  tribal  law,  a  book  of 
some  value  for  boys  and  with  the  genuine 
thrill  of  life  in  it;  "Lost  Indian  Magic," 
by  Grace  and  Carl  Moon,  the  story  of  the 
recovery  of  the  tribe's  magic — a  turquoise 
elephant — which  had  been  stolen  years  be- 
fore the  story  begins ;  "Indian  Heroes  and 
Great  Chieftains,"  by  Charles  Eastman, 
the  life  stories  of  fifteen  famous  Indian 
Chiefs.  Paul  Bransom's  fine  illustrations 
in  color  for  Jean  Thompson's  "Over  In- 
dian and  Animal  Trails"  delighted  Edou- 
ard  and  interested  him  immediately  in  the 
book  itself. 

Jules  Verne's  "The  Mysterious  Island" 
with  N.  C.  Wyeth's  stirring  pictures  will 
give  great  pleasure  to  boys  all  over  the 
country.  Edouard  wishes  to  own  it  for 
the  sake  of  having  "such  a  good  picture  of 
Captain  Nemo."  He  likes  it  better  than 
the  one  he  has  seen  in  the  movies.  It  is 


64      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

interesting  to  compare  the  comments  of 
boy  readers  of  Jules  Verne  to-day  with 
those  made  by  the  boys  of  twenty  years 
ago.  His  appeal  is  a  refreshing  one  and 
the  advance  of  science  has  put  the  modern 
boy  in  closer  touch  with  him  as  an  author 
who  contributed  something  out  of  the  or- 
dinary to  the  boy  readers  of  his  own  time. 

A  very  good  story  for  boys,  suggestive 
in  theme  of  "Captains  Courageous"  but 
quite  differently  handled,  is  "Jim  Spurl- 
ing,  Fisherman,"  by  A.  W.  Tolman.  The 
author  knows  the  Maine  coast  intimately 
and  calls  up  pictures  to  those  familiar  with 
Vinalhaven,  Isle  au  Haut  or  Matinicus. 
Dillon  Wallace's  "Grit  A-Plenty"  is  an- 
other of  his  Labrador  tales. 

Captain  Dugmore  in  "Adventures  in 
Beaver  Stream  Camp"  tells  the  story  of 
boys  wrecked  on  the  coast  of  Labrador, 
who  make  their  escape  through  their 
.knowledge  of  woodcraft.  Captain  Dug- 
more  can  be  relied  upon  for  the  accuracy 
of  his  scientific  information.  Walter 
Prichard  Eaton  has  taken  two  Boy  Scouts 
to  Glacier  Park.  Dogs  and  their  lore 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  65 

form  the  center  of  interest  in  Walter 
Dyer's  "The  Dogs  of  Boytown." 

Dan  Beard  has  prepared  "The  Amer- 
ican Boys'  Book  of  Signs,  Signals  and 
Symbols."  Henry  W.  Lanier,  in  a  col- 
lection called  "The  Book  of  Bravery,"  has 
given  the  stories  of  heroic  deeds  of  men 
of  every  age.  Willis  J.  Abbott  in  "Sol- 
diers of  the  Sea"  gives  the  authoritative 
story  of  our  crack  fighting  United  States 
Marine  Corps.  F.  A.  Collins  in  his  "Na- 
val Heroes  of  To-day"  tells  of  the  deeds 
of  daring  by  men  in  different  branches  of 
the  navy.  Francis  Rolt-Wheeler's  "The 
Wonders  of  War  on  Land"  will  be  hailed 
with  interest  by  boy  readers  of  "The  Won- 
ders of  War  in  the  Air." 

Two  books  stand  out  from  the  books  of 
the  year  1918  and  to  each  of  them  has  been 
accorded  a  more  extended  review. 

In  her  story  of  "The  Blue  Aunt"  Eliza 
Orne  White  has  made  a  contribution  to  the 
literature  of  American  child  life  which 
would  have  delighted  Mary  Mapes  Dodge 
or  Horace  E.  Scudder.  It  is  such  a  pic- 
ture of  American  family  life  in  the  present 


66      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

wartime  as  could  only  have  been  given  by 
one  who  was  herself  a  child  in  the  time 
of  our  Civil  War,  a  born  psychologist,  an 
artist  in  patriotic  suggestion  and  a  very 
good  story-teller. 

"The  Blue  Aunt,"  who  comes  from  Vir- 
ginia as  an  unwelcome  visitor  to  her  step- 
brother's home  in  Massachusetts  and  is 
supposed  by  little  Evelyn — who  has  heard 
her  father  say,  "She'll  be  as  blue  as  in- 
digo"— to  be  literally  blue  in  color,  proves 
to  be  a  most  charming  and  understanding 
"Aunt  Hilda,"  with  a  real  love  of  all  chil- 
dren and  an  absorbing  interest  in  the 
French  orphans.  Children  will  read  the 
story  for  its  dramatic  interest,  lively  inci- 
dent and  genuine  humor.  They  will  be 
quite  unaware  that  they  are  hearing  very 
good  talk  among  the  grown-ups — a  rare 
feature  in  a  child's  book — or  that  the 
chapter  in  which  Jim  and  Charley  Nor- 
cross  dispose  of  the  grapes  and  peaches 
from  the  family  garden  and  the  apples 
from  Judge  Baxter's,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
French  orphans,  has  distinct  ethical  value. 
They  will  be  unconscious  that  the  coming 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  67 

of  the  Blue  Aunt  from  Virginia  to  Mas- 
sachusetts in  the  springtime  symbolizes  the 
strengthening  of  the  spiritual  union  be- 
tween the  South  and  the  North.  They 
will  not  connect  the  childhood  of  the  Blue 
Aunt,  who  was  born  in  France  and  lived 
there  until  she  was  seven,  with  her  words : 
"It  seems  to  me  that  not  to  go  to  France 
now  would  be  like  a  soldier  who  was 
drafted  claiming  exemption  for  a  reason 
that  did  not  hold."  They  may  not  real- 
ize why  Eliza  Orne  White  lighted  the 
bayberry  candle  on  Thanksgiving  night 
and  sent  the  Blue  Aunt  on  her  pilgrimage 
overseas  the  morning  after.  But  those 
who  wear  the  blue  in  France  and  those 
who  remember  it  here  will  not  need  to  be 
told  that  this  is  a  book  for  all  who  love 
the  children  of  France  and  America.  It 
should,  and  doubtless  will,  be  translated 
into  French  and  other  languages. 

We  were  Jiterally  starving  for  such  a 
book  as  the  author  of  "Green  Mansions" 
has  given  us  in  "A  Little  Boy  Lost."  That 
it  should  have  been  published  several  years 
ago  in  England  and  remain  unknown  and 


68      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

unread  by  those  who  have  the  education 
of  American  children  at  heart  is  conclu- 
sive evidence  of  the  need  of  more  illumi- 
nating reviews  of  books  for  children.  I 
had  seen  no  review  of  this  book,  I  had 
talked  with  no  one  who  had  read  it.  I 
had  all  the  joy  of  discovery  as  I  began  to 
read  from  galley-proofs  and  without 
knowledge  of  the  authorship. 

There  is  but  one  Englishman  who  writes 
like  this  of  South  America,  but  could  it 
be  possible  that  W.  H.  Hudson  has  given 
us  at  one  and  the  same  time  bits  of  his  au- 
tobiography and  the  dream  of  a  child  with 
touches  as  poetic  and  mystical  as  William 
Blake's  own  "Little  Boy  Lost"  or  "The 
Piper" ;  as  rare  as  Shelley  in  flight  of  birds 
and  clouds;  as  whimsical  as  Barrie's  "Lit- 
tle White  Bird";  as  sternly  beautiful  as 
Hawthorne's  "Great  Stone  Face";  as 
dramatic,  in  the  description  of  a  troop  of 
wild  horses,  as  Kipling;  as  rich  with  hu- 
mor, in  its  stories  of  old  Jacob  and  the 
Old  Man  of  the  Sea,  as  an  English  folk- 
tale told  by  Joseph  Jacobs;  as  intimate, 
in  the  smaller  aspects  of  nature,  as  "The 


A  CHRISTMAS  BOOK  EXHIBIT  69 

Wind  in  the  Willows" ;  as  filled  with  pure 
nonsense — in  Martin's  replies  to  the  sav- 
age woman  who  speaks  to  him  in  her  own 
savage  language,  and  in  some  of  the  verses, 
as  a  page  from  Edward  Lear  or  Lewis  Car- 
roll? 

One  might  go  on  with  these  reminders, 
but  in  its  sense  of  reality  and  in  the  unity 
of  childhood  with  wild  nature,  I  know  of 
no  book  with  which  to  compare  it.  The 
author  himself  says  of  it : 

Like  any  normal  child,  I  delighted  in  such 
stories  as  "The  Swiss  Family  Robinson,"  but 
they  were  not  the  books  I  prized  most;  they 
omitted  the  very  quality  I  liked  best — the  thrills 
that  Nature  itself  gave  me,  which  half  fright- 
ened and  fascinated  at  the  same  time.  They  ex- 
pressed nothing  of  the  feeling  I  myself  experi- 
enced when  out  of  sight  and  sound  of  my  fellow- 
companions,  whether  out  on  the  great  level  plain 
with  a  glitter  of  illusory  water  all  around  me,  or 
among  the  shady  trees  with  their  bird  and  insect 
sounds,  or  by  the  waterside  and  bed  of  tall,  dark 
bulrushes  murmuring  in  the  wind. 

These  ancient  memories  put  it  in  my  mind  to 
write  a  book  which  I  imagined  would  have  suited 
my  peculiar  taste  of  that  early  period,  the  im- 
possible story  to  be  founded  on  my  own  child- 


70      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

ish  impressions  and  adventures,  with  a  few 
dreams  and  fancies  thrown  in  and  two  or  three 
native  legends  and  myths  about  which  I  heard 
from  my  gauche  comrades  then  on  the  spot. 

I  believe  that  its  appeal,  since  it  is  so 
varied,  will  be  to  children  of  different  ages 
and  to  every  grown  person  who  has  any 
love  of  beauty  or  remembrance  of  child- 
hood. It  is  a  wonderful  book  to  read 
aloud  to  children,  to  older  boys  and  girls 
or  to  grown  people,  at  home,  in  libraries, 
in  schools,  or  out-of-doors. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

VIEWING  AND  REVIEWING 
BOOKS  FOR  CHILDREN 

For  golden  friends  I  had. 

A.   E.   HOUSMAN. 

\I7HEN  Ralph  Bergengren's  "Jane, 
Joseph  and  John"  came  forth  from 
The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press  last  fall,  we 
said,  "Why  shouldn't  it  happen  again? 
Why  not  another  golden  age  of  writing 
and  illustrating  children's  books  at  first 
hand  such  as  Mary  Mapes  Dodge  and 
Frank  R.  Stockton  inaugurated  when  they 
left  Hearth  and  Home  and  took  up  their 
abode  at  the  house  of  St.'  Nicholas  in 
1873?" 

We  remembered  that  long  before  Hor- 
ace E.  Scudder  succeeded  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich  as  editor  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly 
he  spent  three  years  in  the  editing  of  a. 
71 


72      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

children's  magazine.  (The  Riverside 
Magazine  for  Young  People,  1867-70.) 
We  recalled  his  crusade  against  the  school 
readers  of  the  time,  his  pioneer  work  in 
collecting  fables  and  folk  stories,  his  re- 
writing of  American  history,  his  rare 
philosophy  and  understanding  of  child  life 
revealed  in  his  essays  first  published  in 
The  Atlantic  Monthly  and  well  known  to 
us  as  "Childhood  in  Literature  and  Art." 
And  then  we  began  to  think  about  what 
good  friends  Mr.  Scudder  and  Mrs.  Dodge 
had  been  and  how  many  great  friendships 
they  had  shared  with  children.  Pictures 
of  Mrs.  Dodge  flitted  across  our  conscious- 
ness. We  saw  her  seated  at  her  busy  desk 
writing  at  top  speed  those  charming  let- 
ters which  brought  to  the  service  of  St. 
Nicholas  the  best  writers  of  her  time — we 
saw  her  holding  up  authors  wherever  she 
met  them  by  her  laughing  challenge  to 
write  something  "good  enough  for  chil- 
dren." No  author  ever  seemed  to  her  too 
distinguished  to  write  for  childen.  "Are 
you  sure  you  are  equal  to  it*?"  was  her 
quick  reply  when  Kipling  asked  if  she  was 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          73 

not  going  to  ask  him  to  contribute  to  St. 
Nicholas,-  and  a  few  weeks  later  "Rikki- 
Tikki"  and  "Toomai  of  the  Elephants" 
were  outlined  at  Mrs.  Dodge's  hospitable 
home.  Thus  began  the  "Jungle  Books." 

All  of  our  impressions  of  Mr.  Scudder 
and  Mrs.  Dodge  have  been  taken  from 
their  books  or  their  editorial  work  and 
from  those  who  knew  them  best — Ruth 
McEnery  Stuart,  Mrs.  Scudder,  and  Mr. 
Clarke  who  is  the  present  editor  of  St. 
Nicholas.  We  have  been  told  that  Mr. 
Scudder  often  asked  Mrs.  Dodge  to  go  to 
the  theater  with  him  on  his  visits  to  New 
York,  and  we  like  to  think  of  them  seated 
together  at  Wallack's  or  Daly's.  St. 
Nicholas  was  founded  on  the  frank  and 
full  recognition  of  a  child's  right  to  a  good 
time — "a  child's  magazine  is  its  play- 
ground," said  its  editor;  and  what  a  spa- 
cious playground  she  made  of  it! 

To  both  of  these  editors,  the  artist,  as 
well  as  the  author,  was  a  contributor;  he 
was  expected  to  illumine  the  text  of  the 
story  or  poem  for  the  eyes  of  children  and 
at  the  same  time  to  preserve  the  integrity 


74      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

of  his  drawing  and  his  full  conception  of 
the  subject.  Reproductions  of  famous 
paintings  or  engravings  were  chosen  by 
them  because  of  their  appeal  to  children. 
Had  the  "art  wave"  which  swept  the  pub- 
lic schools  in  the  late  'nineties  been 
founded  on  any  such  sound  psychology  and 
understanding  of  children's  interest  in  pic- 
tures, we  should  not  now  be  lagging  so 
far  behind  England,  France,  and  Scandi- 
navia in  our  picture  books.  Why  should 
not  our  art  schools  be  distinguished  for 
their  opportunities  to  create  and  originate 
for  the  children  of  this  country  and  Eu- 
rope in  terms  of  our  contemporary  life*? 
For  years  we  have  longed  for  picture  books 
in  color  showing  the  life  of  great  cities  and 
typical  country  scenes  in  America,  South 
America,  and  Europe — not  lithographs, 
not  geographical  readers,  not  peeps  at  any- 
thing, but  pictures  that  make  you  want  to 
go  there.  Photographs  do  not  and  cannot 
supply  the  illumination  of  the  artist. 

Some  of  the  French  and  Scandinavian 
picture  books  best  typify  the  kind  of  thing 
we  have  in  mind.  To  give  their  own  life 


REVIEWING  BOOKS  75 

and  color  to  New  York,  New  Orleans,  St. 
Augustine,  parts  of  New  England  and  Cal- 
ifornia would  require  the  service  of  artists 
of  a  high  order,  and  we  are  familiar  with 
many  of  the  difficulties  in  color  printing. 
But — we  argued — if  The  Atlantic  Month- 
ly Press  dares  put  out  in  wartime  a  big  flat 
book  with  wide  margins  and  with  Maurice 
Day's  pictures  of  children  who  make  very 
good  impressions  of  those  very  real  chil- 
dren, "Jane,  Joseph  and  John" — even  if 
they  do  leave  something  to  be  desired  in 
action, — why  shouldn't  The  Atlantic 
Monthly  Press  dare  some  more*?  And  so 
— very  timidly  over  a  Boston  telephone — 
the  momentous  question  was  put:  "Does 
'Jane,  Joseph  and  John'  mean  that  The 
Atlantic  Monthly  Press  is  going  to  under- 
take the  publication  of  children's  books  ?" 
"Oh,  no,  nothing  of  the  kind,"  came  the 
reply  in  cheerful  but  positive  tones.  It 
was  not  the  editor  who  spoke,  he  was  then 
in  Europe.  If  anything  very  unusual  and 
original  for  children  were  to  come  in,  it 
might  be  considered  for  publication,  but 
there  were  no  "plans." 


76      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

We  rang  off  the  telephone  but  we  could 
not  ring  down  the  curtain  on  Mrs.  Dodge 
and  Mr.  Scudder.  We  seemed  to  hear 
Mrs.  Dodge  saying  once  more,  "Yes,  I 
know.  It  is  impossible  of  course,  but  let's 
do  it  just  the  same."  And  so,  while  The 
Atlantic  Monthly  Press  had  no  apparent 
intention,  in  the  fall  of  1918,  of  leading 
a  renaissance  movement  in  the  writing  and 
publishing  of  books  for  children,  we  are 
not  in  the  least  surprised  to  learn  of  its 
very  definite  plans  for  the  fall  of  1919. 
The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press  announces  the 
publication  of  good  modern  books  for  chil- 
dren, with  the  consistent  maintenance  of  a 
high  literary  standard.  Special  attention 
is  to  be  given  to  their  illustration,  typog- 
raphy, binding,  etc.  Librarians  will  note 
with  interest  and  relief  that  the  books  are 
not  to  form  a  series — and  parents  with 
confidence,,  that  the  same  editorial  care  will 
be  given  to  them  as  to  The  Atlantic 
Monthly  itself. 

Somebody  had  to  do  it.  We  have  con- 
fidently looked  for  just  such  an  announce- 
ment from  some  competent  source  imme- 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          77 

diately  following  the  war  in  Europe. 
Conferences,  individual  and  collective, 
with  publishers  and  booksellers  preceding 
the  holidays  of  1918  confirmed  our  faith 
that  the  time  was  ripe  in  America  for  a 
vigorous  movement  of  back  to  childhood 
and  youth  and  their  dramatic  human  in- 
terests. A  number  of  publishers  are 
eagerly  looking  for  writers  who  have  the 
power  to  communicate  with  children  and 
young  people  on  their  own  initiative — 
writers  who  have  practiced  the  fundamen- 
tal art  of  expression  and  are  in  touch  with 
the  life  of  the  time.  We  are  convinced 
that  publishers  do  not  want  to  go  on  sup- 
plying plots,  scenes,  and  bits  of  character 
study  from  their  offices.  They  really  pre- 
fer authors  who  have  ideas  and  the  ability 
to  express  them,  nor  are  they  afraid  to  risk 
the  work  of  unknown  authors,  provided  it 
is  good  work. 

Somehow  or  other,  the  impression  seems 
to  have  got  abroad  that  when  one  writes 
for  children  or  young  people,  he  divests 
himself  as  far  as  possible  of  any  natural  or 
acquired  ability  to  write  and  adapts  him- 


78      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

self  to  a  formula  of  what  the  publisher  is 
looking  for  in  a  "successful  juvenile."  It 
is  conceived  that  this  formula  must  be  sub- 
scribed to  before  embarking  on  the  under- 
taking and  there  are  many  who  shrink 
from  the  surrender.  We  are  frequently 
consulted  by  authors  and  would-be  au- 
thors, artists  and  would-be  artists,  as  to 
the  variations  of  the  formula — each  pub- 
lisher, according  to  tradition,  having  a  dif- 
ferent one.  With  all  of  them,  it  is  taken 
for  granted,  we  are  familiar,  since  there  is 
a  prevailing  impression  that  librarians  and 
publishers  are  always  too  busy  with  "de- 
vices" to  read  books  in  a  natural  fashion. 
We  may  as  well  face  frankly  at  the  out- 
set this  reluctance  to  write  for  children  on 
the  part  of  competent  writers,  for  it  is 
symptomatic  of  a  grave  defect  in  our  na- 
tional education.  We  have  drifted  too 
far  apart,  in  the  life  of  our  American  col- 
leges and  universities,  from  the  current  of 
life  in  popular  educational  institutions  in 
which  the  free  use  of  books  by  children 
has  been  sustained  for  a  generation  or 
more.  Too  often  we  have  "let  George  do 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          79 

it" — in  our  schools,  in  our  libraries,  and 
most  of  all  perhaps  in  our  homes.  Read- 
ing for  credit  is  a  barren  substitute  for 
reading  for  love  of  a  book.  Why  should 
we  not  look  to  our  universities  to  blaze 
new  trails  for  the  stimulation  of  both  writ- 
ers and  readers  of  books  for  children? 

There  is  no  better  form  of  training  in 
the  fundamental  art  of  expression  than  a 
sincere  attempt  to  write  to  interest  chil- 
dren and  young  people  following  compe- 
tent lectures  and  discussions  of  compara- 
tive reading.  Why  not  courses  for  read- 
ers?— the  parents  and  teachers,  publishers 
and  booksellers,  of  the  next  generation — 
who  need  to  be  placed  in  a  much  more  un- 
derstanding relation  to  the  resources  on 
which  they  must  rely  in  the  education  of 
children,  if  education  is  to  become  as  im- 
portant as  we  believe  it  to  be. 

When  the  Children's  Room  of  the  New 
York  Public  Library  at  Fifth  Avenue  and 
Forty-second  Street  was  opened  in  1911, 
a  little  book  marked  "Suggestions  from 
the  Public"  was  placed  at  the  reference 
desk.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  many 


80      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

of  the  things  suggested  have  been  carried 
out — how  constantly  we  have  turned  for 
new  ideas  to  that  moving  "public"  made 
up  of  parents,  teachers,  authors,  artists, 
uncles,  aunts,  editors,  journalists,  minis- 
ters, doctors,  lawyers,  actors,  musicians, 
European  professors  and  novelists,  naval 
commanders  and  army  officers,  American 
publishers  and  librarians,  booksellers,  and 
above  all,  of  children  who  have  grown  up 
in  the  room  and  who  turn  back  to  its  serv- 
ice critical  faculties  developed  there. 
Since  we  are  often  asked  what  kinds  of 
books  are  most  wanted  at  a  given  time,  we 
will  now  confess  to  drawing  heavily  upon 
"Suggestions  from  the  Public"  on  occa- 
sion, just  as  we  expect  to  draw  heavily  on 
The  Bookman's  readers  for  this  new  de- 
partment. We  have  undertaken  to  con- 
duct it  not  because  we  were  "sure  we  were 
equal  to  it,"  but  because  the  work  has  so 
long  needed  to  be  done,  and  we  had  faith 
in  the  kind  of  help  we  should  get  from 
the  editors  and  readers  of  The  Bookman. 
"We  come  to  bury"  as  well  as  "to  praise," 
but  we  come  primarily  to  stimulate  more 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          81 

discussion  of  books  in  their  intimate  rela- 
tion to  the  needs  and  desires  of  childhood 
and  youth. 

We  have  been  a  long  time  in  leading 
up  to  the  books  of  1919,  for  we  have  less 
to  say  about  them  than  we  had  antici- 
pated. It  has  been  impossible  to  see  some 
of  the  most  promising  titles,  even  in  gal- 
leys. The  publishers  have  endeavored  to 
supply  information  where  text  has  not 
been  available,  but  we  are  impressed  with 
the  necessity  of  securing  more  adequate  in- 
formation at  an  earlier  date  if  the  prelimi- 
nary review  is  to  serve  the  practical  end 
of  informing  readers  who  wish  to  give 
prompt  and  careful  attention  to  the  se- 
lecting of  books  for  children  and  for  holi- 
day exhibits. 

The  present  indications  are  that  the 
number  of  outstanding  books  for  children 
and  young  people  will  be  smaller  than  for 
1918.  Several  publishers  have  had  a 
dreary  winter  and  spring,  two  or  three  are 
childless,  to  their  regret  but  to  our  felief 
when  we  survey  the  variety  of  makeshifts 
and  done-overs  announced  by  others.  We 


82      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

turn  with  a  feeling  of  increased  respect 
toward  a  house  that  has  steadily  declined 
manuscripts  too  poor  for  publication. 
There  have  been  many  such  manuscripts 
in  the  market. 

A  number  of  extremely  dull  books  have 
been  brought  over  from  England.  Books 
of  "Sound  Science  and  Fascinating  Read- 
ing," two  of  them  are  called.  We  do  not 
question  the  science,  but  the  children  we 
know  would  not  find  them  readable. 

In  selecting  books  for  American  chil- 
dren, great  care  should  be  taken  to  include 
none  which  belong  to  the  present  order  of 
dead  wood  on  library  shelves.  Books  of 
science,  invention,  mechanics,  sports, 
travel,  biography,  histories,  stories— ^both 
modern  fairy  tales  and  stories  of  adven- 
ture— all  hold  these  lurking  possibilities 
if  they  are  not  up-to-date  or  if  written  in 
a  manner  which  seems  remote  to  an  Amer- 
ican boy  or  girl.  "Too  English"  they  say 
of  them  as,  no  doubt,  "too  American" 
would  be  the  English  boy  or  girl's  char- 
acterization of  similar  books  written  for 
the  children  of  this  country.  We  need 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          83 

to  be  very  frank  in  this  matter  of  inter- 
change of  books  on  informational  sub- 
jects. They  must  not  be  dull  and  they 
must  be  authentic.  In  both  countries 
there  is  a  large  heritage  of  didactic  writ- 
ing for  children,  which  began  accumulat- 
ing immediately  after  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. It  varies  slightly  in  style  from  one 
generation  to  another,  but  is  easily  recog- 
nized in  kind — by  children  as  books  their 
parents  and  teachers  seem  to  like,  and  by 
librarians  as  the  dead  wood  of  their 
shelves.  It  is  our  experience  that  the  boys 
and  girls  of  this  generation  are  seeking 
more  information  and  more  authentic  in- 
formation from  books  than  .has  been  true 
of  any  previous  age,  but  they  have  become 
more  critical  as  to  form  and  subject  mat- 
ter. Up-to-date  reference  books  such  as 
"The  World  Book"  command  respect  be- 
cause they  do  not  pretend  to  be  "fasci- 
nating reading,"  but  deal,  immediately 
and  in  English  which  can  be  easily  read, 
with  the  subjects  contained  in  them. 

We  have  long  contended  that  didacti- 
cism, condescension,  and  propaganda  are 


84      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

the  natural  enemies  of  the  reading  habit 
in  this  country.  Why  are  the  library 
shelves  containing  books  of  science,  travel, 
biography,  especially  collective  biography, 
and  European  histories,  so  often  called  the 
deadest  parts  of  a  children's  room*?  Not 
because  the  subjects  in  themselves  are  un- 
interesting. Not  because  children  do  not 
want  to  know  what  the  world  is  like. 
Their  interest  is  keen  in  knowing  what  the 
world  is  like,  as  any  good  teacher  of  his- 
tory or  geography,  any  thoughtful  parent 
or  any  intelligent  librarian  will  tell  yob. 
The  answer  to  the  question  and  the  rem- 
edy for  the  condition  lie  with  the  authors, 
illustrators,  and  publishers,  and  we  may 
add,  that  in  the  solution  of  this  problem 
there  may  be  found  an  open  door  to  more 
intelligent  and  friendly  international  re- 
lations. 

From  the  days  of  Peter  Parley  we  have 
been  taking  "peeps,"  "glimpses',"  "zigzag 
journeys,"  and  "excursions"  to  various 
countries  at  an  educational  jog-trot. 

Peter  Parley  and  Jacob  Abbott  did 
some  traveling,  to  be  sure,  but  they  also 


REVIEWING  BOOKS  85 

wrote  extensively  to  the  miscellaneous  pic- 
tures provided  by  their  publishers,  and 
dwelt  chiefly  on  the  peculiarities  and  dif- 
ferences of  the  people  they  met  and  the 
places  they  visited.  Neither  they  nor  any 
of  their  long  train  of  successors  have  given 
a  sense  of  what  it  is  like  to  live  in  another 
country  and  know  the  people  as  "real 
folks." 

We  have  distributed  remnants  of  his- 
tory and  poorly  drawn  portraits  of  very 
dead  heroes  and  heroines,  and  then  have 
wondered  why  so  few  children  or  grown 
people  seem  to  be  interested  in  other  coun- 
tries or  races. 

We  often  turn  back  to  Dr.  Crothers's 
"That  History  Should  be  Readable"  in  his 
"Gentle  Reader,"  and  we  like  to  recall  at 
this  moment,  William  Roscoe  Thayer's 
"History— Quick  or  Dead?"  .in  The  At- 
lantic Monthly  of  last  October.  Who  is 
to  read  the  "Quick"  histories  if  not  the 
young  people  of  the  country"?  Florence 
Converse  evidently  realizes  both  the  need 
and  the  opportunity  in  her  enlightening 
and  sympathetic  introduction 'to  Nannine 


86      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Meiklejohn's  "The  Cart  of  Many  Col- 
ors," a  well-written  story  of  life  in  Italy 
in  the  Little  Schoolmate  Series.  The 
books  of  this  series  are  a  notable  exception 
to  those  to  which  we  have  objected,  in  that 
they  have  been  written  by  persons  who 
are  native  to  the  countries  or  have  lived  in 
them.  They  are  unequal  in  interest  and 
we  have  always  regretted  the  series  title, 
also  the  fact  that  Miss  Converse's  illumi- 
nating introductions  begin  with  "Dear 
Schoolmate."  The  subject-matter  is  so 
valuable  as  to  suggest  a  wider  reading  if 
given  a  distinctive  chapter  heading  at  the 
beginning  or  at  the  end  of  the  book.  We 
have  seen  nowhere  so  informing  and  so 
humanized  an  account  of  Italian  life  in 
America  as  Miss  Converse  gives  in  her  in- 
troduction to  "The  Cart  of  Many  Col- 
ors." 

A  most  inspiriting  announcement  comes 
from  the  new  house  of  Harcourt,  Brace, 
and  Howe.  Dorothy  Canfield  is  writing 
that  much-needed  "History  of  France  for 
Young  Folks."  It  promises  to  be  the  real 
thing,  since  she  has  been  living  and  mak- 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          87 

ing  French  history  for  the  past  three  years, 
and  has  her  girlhood  memories  of  France 
before  the  war  and  her  keen  sense  of 
dramatic  values  to  put  behind  it.  It  is  not 
possible  to  express  an  equal  degree  of  con- 
fidence in  a  resuscitation  of  Bonner's 
"Child's  History  of  France,"  although  we 
have  not  seen  the  text.  We  would 
strongly  advise  comparative  reading  or  ex- 
amination before  purchase,  in  the  case  of 
all  revisions  of  old  texts  in  the  fields  of 
science,  invention,  history,  travel,  and  bi- 
ography. In  rare  instances  do  rewritten 
histories  appeal  to  the  reader.  We  do  not 
here  refer  to  such  textual  changes  in  school 
histories  as  are  necessary  to  keep  them  up- 
to-date  and  to  mark  changes  of  national 
sentiment.  Excellent  and  much-needed 
work  has  been  done  on  our  school  his- 
tories since  the  war.  We  are  asking  for 
a  more  spacious  order  of  book  than  a  text- 
book can  ever  be. 

Geoffrey  Parsons's  "The  Land  of  Fair 
Play"  is  a  remarkably  lucid  and  a  very 
much  more  interesting  presentation  of 
"How  America  is  Governed"  than  we  have 


ever  had  before.  The  aims  stated  in  the 
introduction  are  so  well  carried  out  and 
Mr.  Parsons's  style  so  completely  exempli- 
fies what  we  have  been  pleading  for  in  the 
book  of  information,  that  we  take  heart 
and  confidently  look  for  that  other  book 
for  which  Norwegians,  Danes,  Swedes, 
Russians,  Italians,  Frenchmen,  Chinese, 
Japanese  and  Englishmen  have  been  ask- 
ing for  years.  That  "other  book"  is  a 
one-volume  history  of  America  true  ui  its 
essential  background,  dramatic  in  form,  in 
which  the  writer  does  not  lose  himself  in 
colonization,  the  French  and  Indian  war 
or  in  any  of  "our  wars,"  but  really  tells 
the  story  of  America  to  the  children  of 
other  countries  with  an  appeal  to  the  heart 
as  well  as  to  the  mind.  No  text-book,  no 
book  written  as  propaganda,  could  accom- 
plish the  work  of  such  a  book  from  the 
hands  of  a  competent  author,  artist,  trans- 
lator, and  publisher.  It  is  as  much  needed 
by  the  children  and  young  people  of  our 
own  land  as  of  any  other;  and  there  could 
be  no  fitter  celebration  of  the  landing  of 
the  Pilgrims  than  an  announcement  that 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          89 

such  a  book  under  assured  conditions  is 
under  way  in  1920. 

The  new  edition  of  "The  Last  of  the 
Mohicans"  bids  fair  to  call  out  some  of 
the  best  work  N.  C.  Wyeth  has  done;  we 
have  seen  only  the  end  papers  and  cover 
design,  but  we  have  known  what  a  good 
time  Mr.  Wyeth  was  having  with  the 
book.  There  could  nor  be  a  more  favor- 
able moment  for  a  revival  of  interest  in 
Cooper  in  his  relation  to  American  history. 
In  one  of  the  library  reading  clubs  last 
winter,  the  boys  debated  the  merits  of 
Cooper  and  Altsheler.  Feeling  they  had 
a  sure  thing  in  his  known  popularity,  the 
Altsheler  side  did  no  work,  and  the  debate 
was  won  by  the  Cooper  side  who  read 
Cooper  to  establish  his  claim  to  present 
consideration.  The  recent  death  of  Mr. 
Altsheler  is  keenly  felt  by  the  boys  and 
by  all  who  have  realized  the  value  of  his 
work  in  its  relation  to  American  life  and 
American  history.  Mr.  Altsheler's  popu- 
larity has  been  greater  in  public  libraries 
than  that  of  any  living  writer  for  boys  in 
the  past  twenty  years,  and  his  influence 


90      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

has  been  broader  than  that  of  any  earlier 
writer  for  boys  within  our  memory. 

He  has  fortunately  left  unpublished 
works.  "The  Sun  of  Quebec"  is  an- 
nounced in  his  French  and  Indian  War  se- 
ries. We  are  confident  that  his  publish- 
ers will  place  none  of  Mr.  Altsheler's  work 
in  other  hands  to  be  finished.  There  can 
be  no  graver  mistake  committed  than  that 
of  giving  over  the  work  of  a  popular  au- 
thor for  boys  or  girls  to  be  finished  and 
announced  under  the  name  of  the  dead  au- 
thor. How  often  has  the  difference  in 
style  been  pointed  out  and  how  keen  is 
the  resentment  of  the  boy  or  girl  critic, 
we  are  here  to  testify.  "From  Appo- 
mattox  to  Germany"  bears  the  author's 
name  on  the  title-page,  and  it  is  stated  in 
the  introduction  that  the  author  has  fol- 
lowed the  "method"  of  Coffin.  We 
would  characterize  it  as  a  camouflaged 
Coffin  book  bearing  no  other  relation  to  the 
work  of  Charles  Carleton  Coffin  than  a 
confusing  similiarity  in  size  and  cover  de- 
sign. Starting  with  a  most  unfortunate 
title  and  a  miscellaneous  lot  of  old  pic- 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          91 

tures  it  has  achieved  its  weight — for  it  is 
very  heavy — without  continuity  of  his- 
torical style  or  dramatic  appeal  to  the  boy 
reader,  who  likes  to-  live  through  a  period. 
We  cannot  and  do  not  recommend  this 
book. 

Our  reaction  to  the  revision  of  Francis 
Drake's  "Indian  History  for  Young 
Folks"  is  entirely  different.  The  author's 
original  work  here  forms  the  larger  part  of 
the  volume,  new  material  being  added  in 
separate  chapters  for  the  purpose  of  bring- 
ing up-to-date  a  standard  history  still  in 
demand. 

"The  Romance  of  Aircraft"  by  Lau- 
rence Yard  Smith  is  the  first  book  to  cover 
the  early  history  of  the  subject  in  readable 
form  for  children's  libraries  and  should  be 
of  immediate  interest  and  value.  The 
book  not  only  tells  of  the  experiments  of 
flying  in  France  in  the  eighteenth  century 
— all  types  of  aircraft  are  described,  their 
invention,  principles  of  flight,  and  their 
use  during  the  war. 

A  story  of  aviation  by  Austin  Bishop  is 


92      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

announced  as  authentic  in  its  information 
and  interesting  as  a  story. 

"Czechoslovak  Fairy  Tales,"  retold  for 
young  folks  by  Parker  Fillmore,  and  il- 
lustrated by  Jan  Matulka,  is  also  an- 
nounced, but  has  not  been  available  for 
examination;  nor  have  we  seen  "The 
Wonder  Garden,"  a  collection  of  nature 
myths  and  tales  by  Frances  Jenkins  Olcott 
and  illustrated  by  Milo  Winter. 

Miss  Olcott's  work  in  the  selection  and 
adaptation  of  myths  and  fairy  tales  is  well 
known  for  its  sincerity  of  purpose  and  con- 
sideration for  the  understanding  of  chil- 
dren. We  turn  to  older  renderings,  how- 
ever, for  the  traditional  atmosphere  and 
color. 

We  have  seen  galleys  for  "The  Chil- 
dren's Fairyland,"  an  edition  of  Madame 
d'Aulnoy's  tales,  shortened  and  illustrated 
by  silhouettes  done  by  Harriet  Mead  Ol- 
cott. Children  will  be  attracted  to  the 
tales  in  this  form  as  an  introduction  to  a 
more  complete  collection. 

A  new  and  attractive  edition  of  Scud- 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          93 

der's  "Fables  and  Folk  Stories,"  has  illus- 
trations in  color  by  Maurice  Day. 

One  of  the  distinctive  books  of  the  year 
is  a  Mother  Goose  illustrated  by  Boyd 
Smith  and  edited  with  historical  notes, 
and  with  the  reprint  of  the  first  known 
preface  to  a  child's  book,  by  Lawrence 
Elmendorf.  Boyd  Smith  and  Miss  El- 
mendorf  worked  individually  upon  this 
book.  The  illustrations  are  not  historical 
but  humorous.  They  vary  in  quality,  the 
drawing  of  "the  cow  that  jumped  over  the 
moon"  and  certain  others  being  too  real- 
istic— and  of  the  stock-farm  for  the 
Mother  Goose,  suggested  by  Randolph 
Caldecott  and  Leslie  Brooke.  Miss  El- 
mendorf has  done  a  piece  of  painstaking 
and  scholarly  work  with  the  rhymes,  and 
the  book  will  form  a  valuable  addition  to 
the  reference  shelves  of  children's  rooms 
and  school  libraries,  as  well  as  to  gift 
books. 

"The  ^Esop  for  Children,"  with  some 
of  Milo  Winter's  best  work  in  its  illustra- 
tions, is  in  striking  contrast,  for  the  fables 
have  been  attenuated  and  modernized. 


94      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

The  work  is  unsigned  and  the  book  goes 
forth  under  the  name  of  the  artist  and  its 
publisher.  We  shall  deal  with  this  subject 
more  adequately  in  a  future  article;  but 
let  us  state  right  here  that  we  are  ready  to 
take  as  strong  a  stand  as  need  be  on  the 
matter  of  rewriting  and  reediting  the  clas- 
sics for  children.  Hands  off  Mother 
Goose  and  the  old  fairy  and  folk  tales,  the 
poetry,  and  the  great  traditions  of  the 
race,  unless  the  work  is  signed  and  there 
is  fair  evidence  of  competent  literary 
treatment. 

"The  Three  Mulla-Mulgars"  of  Wal- 
ter de  la  Mare  is  a  story  of  monkeys — 
full  of  fascination  and  charm,  of  unusual 
words  and  quaint  phrasing,  but  is  not  sim- 
ple enough  in  style  to  be  very  generally 
read  by  children  in  its  present  form. 

The  book  that  seems  destined  to  be 
taken  straight  to  the  hearts  of  children, 
and  of  grown-ups  who  have  the  sense  of 
nonsense  and  a  love  of  little  boys,  is 
"David  Blaize  and  the  Blue  Door."  It 
reminds  one  of  "Alice  in  Wonderland" 
but  is  not  an  imitation.  Mr.  Benson  has 


REVIEWING  BOOKS          95 

created  his  own  delightful  pictures  of 
David  at  the  age  of  six.  The  breath  of 
England  is  in  it,  the  house,  the  garden, 
the  lake,  the  rooks  in  the  elm  trees,  the 
village.  We  feel  all  these  even  behind 
the  "Blue  Door"  where  everything  comes 
alive  to  David — the  flame  cats  on  the  nur- 
sery walls,  Noah  and  the  animals  of  the 
ark,  the  old  brown  trout  in  the  lake,  Brad- 
shaw,  Waterloo  and  all  the  rest.  It 
seems  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world 
for  a  giraffe  to  open  a  third-story  window 
and  lean  down  to  whisper  in  David's  ear, 
"I  live  on  surprises."  So  do  we,  for  this 
book  was  not  sent  by  its  publishers,  but 
discovered  by  sheer  luck  in  an  editor's  of- 
fice. We  have  seen  the  book,  just  pub- 
lished in  the  United  States,  only  in  an  edi- 
tion printed  in  England  in  December, 
1918,  to  which  the  illustrations  of  H.  J. 
Ford  contribute  since  they  are  in  harmony 
with  the  text;  but  the  author  himself  has 
such  a  gift  for  making  one  see  and  feel 
that  the  book  would  be  read  if  it  had  no 
pictures.  We  shall  have  more  to  say  of 
this  book  in  its  bearing  on  the  reading  of 


96       ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

children  under  ten  years  old,  and  of 
"David  Blaize,"  by  the  same  author — for 
after  we  had  read  "David  Blaize  and  the 
Blue  Door"  we  simply  had  to  read  "David 
Blaize,"  published  several  years  ago,  to  see 
if  there  was  any  connection.  There  isn't, 
as  a  book,  for  "David  Blaize"  is  the  story 
of  an  English  schoolboy,  written  for  grown 
people  rather  than  for  boys.  But  there  is 
a  connection  of  another  and  subtler  kind 
for  all  who  have  known  intimately  the 
little  and  big  boyhood  of  men. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

HOLIDAY  BOOKS 

For  Mercy,  Courage,  Kindness,  Mirth, 
Ther&  is  no  measure  upon  earth. 

LAURENCE   BINYON. 

HOW  much  does  a  dream  cost?'  asked 
Peter. 

"  'A  golden  florin,'  answered  the  mer- 
chant. 

"  Til  have  one,  please,'  said  Peter,  and 
he  handed  over  the  golden  florin  he  had 
found  as  he  came  whistling  down  the  road. 

"The  old  man  took  a  kind  of  wonder- 
ful sugar-plum  out  of  the  ivory  horn  and 
gave  it  to  Peter  to  eat.  'You  will  have 
the  dream  next  time  you  sleep,'  said  he, 
and  trudged  on.  .  .  .  He  was  a  very  old 
man ;  his  face  was  puckered  up  into  a  thou- 
sand wrinkles,  like  the  skin  of  a  shrunken 
apple,  and  he  had  long,  snow-white  hair 
and  a  white  beard  which  reached  almost  to 
97 


98      ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

his  waist.  Moreover,  he  was  strangely 
dressed  in  a  robe  of  cherry  scarlet  and  wore 
golden  shoes.  From  a  kind  of  belt  hung 
two  horns  on  silver  chains,  one  an  ordi- 
nary cow's  horn,  the  other  a  beautiful  horn 
carved  of  the  whitest  ivory  and  decorated 
with  little  figures  of  men  and  animals. 
'The  Seller  of  Dreams'  had  all  kinds,  he 
said — good,  bad,  true,  false — even  a  few 
thrilling  nightmares." 

After  we  had  read  this  story  from  "The 
Firelight  Fairy  Book"  and  had  seen  Mau- 
rice Day's  picture  of  the  enchanting  figure 
of  the  old  "Seller  of  Dreams"  clothed  in 
cherry  scarlet,  and  the  lively  young  Peter 
with  his  green  hat  and  basket  of  eggs,  we 
ceased  to  care  whether  we  found  "a  Christ- 
mas story"  on  the  title-page  of  any  book 
for  1919.  We  had  one  to  our  own  taste 
right  here.  Peter's  Aunt  Jane,  one  of  the 
most  delectable  and  convincing  characters 
that  ever  appeared  in  a  fairy  tale,  rolls 
into  the  story  in  a  coach  drawn  by  twelve 
white  horses.  She  had  become  queen  sim- 
ply by  walking  into  a  deserted  castle,  put- 
ting on  a  crown,  and  telling  the  servants 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  99 

she  intended  to  be  queen.  "You  see, 
Peter  dear,  there's  nothing  that  a  woman 
of  determination  and  energy  can't  accom- 
plish." "The  Seller  of  Dreams"  is  a  cap- 
ital story  from  beginning  to  end,  and  we 
wish  its  title  had  been  given  to  a  book 
with  so  strong  an  appeal  to  boys  and  girls 
of  ten  years  and  older  who  are  lovers  of 
Howard  Pyle,  Stevenson,  and  Quiller- 
Couch. 

We  had  been  kept  in  suspense  about  this 
book  ever  since  last  July.  "The  Firelight 
Fairy  Book"  told  us  nothing  we  wanted 
to  know.  Such  a  title  might  cover  an  ut- 
terly commonplace  collection  of  stories. 
We  had  no  idea  who  was  writing  or  illus- 
trating the  book.  And  so,  at  last,  we 
yielded  to  the  impulse  to  g6  over  to  Bos- 
ton and  find  out.  There  we  had  the  good 
fortune  to  meet  the  author  who  assured 
us  the  stories  were  born  of  his  own  imag- 
ination, influenced  by  his  love  of  the  old 
French  tales  and  his  strong  feeling  for  the 
sea.  He  had  been  in  service  at  Verdun 
and  he  had  spent  several  months  with 
United  States  destroyers,  submarines,  and 


ioo    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

battleships.  "The  City  Under  the  Sea," 
he  told  us,  was  outlined  and  partly  writ- 
ten in  a  submarine  in  active  pursuit  of 
German  submarines  off  the  coast  of  Ire- 
land. In  his  "Full  Speed  Ahead"  we 
have  since  found  a  record  of  this  experi- 
ence of  submarine  life,  of  interest  to  boys 
although  written  as  a  series  of  articles  for 
older  readers. 

Mr.  Beston  has  lived  by  the  sea  all  his 
life  (he  is  still  a  young  man)  and  one 
feels  the  influence  of  tales  of  buccaneers 
and  pirates,  of  phantom  ships,  and  strange 
wonders. 

The  collection,  as  a  whole,  seems  to  us 
to  have  more  of  the  quality,  interest,  and 
wonder  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  conceived 
in  an  atmosphere  of  the  western  world, 
than  that  of  any  other  book  of  fairy  tales 
we  can  recall. 

There  is  no  hint  of  war  on  land  or  sea 
in  any  of  the  stories ;  there  is  no  preaching 
or  teaching.  The  author's  love  of  beauty 
and  sincere  desire  to  tell  a  good  story  for 
art's  sake  will  be  revealed  as  soon  as  you 
begin  to  read  "The  Queen  of  Lantern 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  101 

Land."  Maurice  Day's  illustrations  show 
very  much  stronger  qualities  of  imagina- 
tion and  action  than  were  revealed  in  his 
pictures  for  "Jane,  Joseph  and  John." 

Mr.  Day  has  also  made  the  illustrations 
in  color  and  the  drawings  in  black  and 
white  for  a  well-timed  new  edition  of 
"Fables  and  Folk  Stories,"  by  Horace  E. 
Scudder.  We  had  no  opportunity  to  talk 
with  this  artist;  but  it  interested  us,  as  it 
may  others,  to  compare  his  pictures  for  the 
book  of  new  fairy  tales  with  those  for  the 
old  fables  and  stories.  There  is  a  child- 
like quality  of  interpretation  in  his  work 
that  is  very  appealing  to  children.  His 
animals  might  be  stronger.  The  illustra- 
tions of  Richard  Heighway  for  Joseph 
Jacobs's  delightful  rendering  of  ^Esop  pre- 
sent an  interesting  contrast. 

As  we  walked  across  Boston  Common 
to  The  Bookshop  for  Boys  and  Girls  after 
these  illuminating  visits  to  publishers,  we 
wondered  what  Mr.  Scudder  would  say 
and  do  about  the  storined  ^Esops,  the  self- 
conscious  verse,  and  the  devitalized,  steri- 
lized collections  of  folk  and  fairy  tales  so 


102    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

freely  advertised  as  "free  from  savagery, 
distressing  details,  and  excessive  pathos." 
It  is  nearly  forty  years  since  "The  Chil- 
dren's Book,"  a  collection  of  the  "best  and 
most  famous  stories  and  poems  in  the  Eng- 
lish language,"  was  published,  and  the 
first  edition  of  "Fables  and  Folk  Stories" 
appeared  as  a  school  reading-book  at  about 
the  same  time.  The  publication  of  these 
books  marked  the  beginning  of  a  new  era 
in  children's  reading.  The  fable  and 
folk-story  came  into  their  own  in  Amer- 
ican public  schools  and  households  very 
largely  through  Mr.  Scudder's  popular 
renderings  of  traditional  tales,  his  keen 
constructive  criticism  of  the  conditions  af- 
fecting the  child-life  of  his  time,  and  his 
unshaken  faith  in  "the  spiritual  judgment 
of  childhood,"  which  he  likened  to  "a 
winnowing  fan"  separating  literature  from 
chaff  in  the  earliest  stages  of  reading.  He 
it  was  who  said  of  Hans  Christian  Ander- 
sen: "He  was  not  only  an  interpreter  of 
childhood ;  he  was  the  first  child  who  made 
a  real  contribution  to  literature."  We 
have  felt  justified  in  giving  space  to  this 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  103 

subject  in  a  review  of  holiday  books  since 
parents,  teachers,  librarians,  and  book- 
sellers are  in  a  state  of  annual  bewilder- 
ment in  making  a  choice  of  versions  of  folk 
and  fairy  tales. 

Mr.  Scudder's  preface  to  the  early 
edition  of  "Fables  and  Folk  Stories,"  and 
Charles  Eliot  Norton's  introduction  to 
"Heart  of  Oak  Books,"  contain  the  sub- 
stance of  doctrine  for  those  who  would  put 
childhood  in  touch  with  literature  in  any 
age.  Summed  up  in  terms  of  our  own 
practical  experience,  it  amounts  to  this: 
Begin  young  enough.  Never  feel  afraid 
to  recommend  the  best  of  its  kind  and 
leave  literature  free  to  make  its  own  ap- 
peal. It  goes  without  saying  that  you  must 
lave  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  books  you 
recommend  and  a  growing  understanding 
of  child  nature  outside  of  books.  Ever 
since  we  discovered  that  Clifton  Johnson 
tripped  his  giants  up  with  strings,  we  have 
made  sure  that  "Jack  the  Giant  Killer" 
was  compared  with  the  rendering  of  Joseph 
Jacobs  or  Charles  Eliot  Norton  before  pur- 
chasing a  new  collection  in  which  the  story 


104    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

appears.  We  have  been  asked  if  we  did 
not  believe  that  the  reading  of  fairy  tales 
helped  bring  on  the  war.  We  wanted  to 
put  this  question  to  Lord  Dunsany,  who 
has  been  through  two  wars,  when  we  heard 
him  say  that  the  two  books  he  read  most 
in  early  childhood  were  "Grimm's  Fairy 
Tales"  and  those  of  Hans  Christian  Ander- 
sen, and  that  he  now  feels  his  parents  could 
not  have  chosen  more  wisely.  We  feel 
confident  that  he  had  a  good  translation 
of  each,  for  he  proved  his  intimacy  with 
Randolph  Caldecott  on  his  visit  to  the 
Children's  Room  of  the  New  York  Public 
Library — and  made  first  acquaintance 
there  with  Leslie  Brooke's  pictures,  for 
fairy  tales  and  nursery  rhymes,  with  which 
he  had  a  very  good  time. 

King  Albert  of  Belgium,  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, and  the  Duke  of  Brabant  had  visited 
the  children's  room  a  few  days  before  we 
went  to  Boston.  No  wonder  we  were  pos- 
sessed by  fairy  tales,  having  seen  one 
come  true  before  our  very  eyes. 

We  long  to  do  an  article  on  the  folk- 
tales of  reviewing,  but  we  have  no  editorial 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  105 

sanction  for  the  idea  and  we  must  content 
ourselves  with  sharing  one  more  Boston 
impression.  In  a  dingy  old  building  near 
the  South  Station  we  found  plenty  of  evi- 
dence that  imagination  and  courage  still 
live  in  the  publishing  world.  We  had 
been  captivated  before  leaving  New  York 
by  the  "Nonsense  Book,"  a  collection  of 
limericks  composed  by  other  people  but 
copied  into  a  book  and  illustrated  by  Susan 
Hale  in  a  manner  suggestive  of  Edward 
Lear.  The  remarkably  good  form  of  this 
book  and  of  a  boy's  book  bearing  this  pub- 
lisher's imprint  made  us  want  to  know 
more  about  the  publisher.  We  found  him 
to  be  a  person  with  a  very  definite  inter- 
est in  art  and  a  refreshing  point  of  view. 
He  showed  the  plates  reproducing  in  color 
forty  paintings  by  Italian  Primitives  for 
"The  Story  of  Jesus,"  by  Mrs.  Richard 
Henry  Dana,  Jr.,  and  some  pages  of  the 
text.  Mrs.  Dana  planned  this  book  for 
the  religious  education  of  her  own  chil- 
dren. In  the  choice  of  Bible  text,  as  in 
her  selection  of  reproductions  from  the 
old  paintings,  Mrs.  Dana  has  preserved 


106    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

the  full  dignity  and  beauty  of  both.  We 
think  the  book  will  meet  a  need  we  have 
often  heard  expressed. 

"Inklings  for  Thinklings"  was  published 
on  the  day  of  our  visit.  For  this  book 
Susan  Hale  wrote  the  verses  and  made  the 
drawings.  Giant  Longlegs  winding  the 
church  clock  and  the  fish  flying  out  at  the 
chimney  top,  would  alone  make  the  book 
worth  owning.  This  book  and  the  "Non- 
sense Book"  furnish  incentive  to  children 
who  like  to  make  pictures  on  paper  or  in 
their  own  minds.  That  the  text  is  in  script 
is  a  matter  of  minor  importance.  Chil- 
dren may  or  may  not  read  it.  The  draw- 
ings are  the  distinctive  feature  of  the 
books,  and  the  books  are  so  well  made  as 
to  admit  of  hard  usage  in  schools  and 
libraries. 

Those  who  have  read  Susan  Hale's 
"Letters"  will  remember  that  they  are  il- 
lustrated by  some  very  amusing  sketches 
from  all  parts  of  the  world.  We  have 
refreshed  ourselves  with  these  letters  at 
intervals  ever  since  we  began  reading  for 
this  review.  The  letters  to  her  sister 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  107 

Lucretia  were  made  personal  to  us  by  our 
early  and  strong  affection  for  "The  Peter- 
kin  Papers."  We  discovered  the  Peterkins 
in  a  bound  volume  of  "Our  Young  Folks." 
They  were  the  first  real  people  we  ever 
found  in  print  and  we  thought  them  very- 
funny.  We  believed  that  we  alone  knew 
them  and  delighted  in  repeating  what  they 
said  and  did.  None  of  the  "letters  of 
Susan  Hale"  are  written  to  children;  but 
they  are  brimming  over  with  fun  and  the 
joy  of  going  on  with  life,  whether  it  meant 
visiting  a  succession  of  Christmas  trees  in 
Germany  or  entertaining  a  house  party  of 
young  people  in  Rhode  Island.  We  were 
naturally  reminded  of  Edward  Everett 
Hale  (Susan  was  his  sister),  his  intimate 
association  with  children  and  his  writing 
for  them.  We  were  still  with  the  Hale 
family  when  we  secured  a  copy  of  "Theo- 
dore Roosevelt's  Letters  to  His  Children" 
for  "over  night  only."  Our  enjoyment  of 
the  picture  letters  was  all  the  keener  since 
they  recalled  Mr.  Roosevelt's  expressed  de- 
light in  "Our  Young  Folks,"  and  in  "The 
William  Henry  Letters,"  by  Mrs.  Diaz, 


io8    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

which  he  first  read  in  that  magazine.  We 
yield  to  none  of  many  temptations  to  quote 
from  a  book  we  should  all  own.  There 
are  two  outstanding  things  about  it  in 
this  connection — at  all  times  and  at  all 
ages  Mr.  Roosevelt  treated  his  children  as 
equals — and  he  took  time,  about  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  every  evening,  to  read 
aloud  to  them.  "This  reading  to  them  in 
the  evening  gives  me  a  chance  to  see  them 
that  I  would  not  otherwise  have,  although 
sometimes  it  is  rather  hard  to  get  the 
time." 

We  venture  to  predict  that  if  several 
thousand  fathers  of  American  families 
would  begin  to  read  aloud  to  their  chil- 
dren on  a  similar  basis  of  equality,  we 
should  see  great  changes  in  many  publi- 
cations we  have  recently  reviewed.  John 
Martin's  "Big  Book  for  Little  Folks,  No. 
3"  is  one  of  them.  We  have  read  it 
through.  Parts  of  it  we  have  read  aloud 
— a  test  we  frequently  apply  in  reviewing. 
We  have  looked  at  all  its  pictures  from 
several  points  of  view.  We  shall  not  at- 
tempt to  discuss  its  original  features.  We 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  109 

do  not  like  them,  but  there  are  many  who 
do.  We  limit  our  criticism  to  the  small 
treatment  of  great  subjects  as  instanced  in 
retold  and  written-down  versions  of  Bible 
stories,  myths,  folk-tales,  and  biographical 
stories  by  various  authors,  and  to  the  lack 
of  any  arrangement  or  continuity  of  pres- 
entation of  a  great  variety  of  subjects. 
Two  quotations  from  life  sketches  will 
serve  to  illustrate: 

Washington  was  a  child  of  bright  opportu- 
nity. He  was  born  in  a  home  of  wealth,  good 
breeding,  and  honorable  beliefs,  yet  he  founded 
a  nation  in  which  a  child  of  the  humblest  people 
may  grow  to  the  highest  place  of  honor  and 
service. 

Thoreau  fares  worse  than  Washington. 

He  was  so  kind!  and  he  was  a  busy  man  too. 
He  built  his  own  house.  He  had  a  garden.  He 
made  lead  pencils.  He  wrote  books.  Most  likely 
we  never  did  know  a  busy  man  who  was  more 
kind  than  he  was  to  everybody — animals  and  all 
— children  and  all.  No  wonder  he  became  a 
very  famous  man. 

"When  you  are  writing  for  children," 
says  Anatole  France  in  "My  Friend's 


no    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Book,"  "do  not  assume  a  style  for  the 
occasion.  Think  your  best  and  write  your 
best.  Let  the  whole  thing  live." 

Emilie  Poulsson  has  certainly  done  this 
in  her  admirable  translation  from  the 
Norwegian  of  Dikken  Zwilgmeyer's 
"What  Happened  to  Inger  Johanne." 
The  book  is  alive  from  beginning  to  end. 
It  is  thoroughly  Norwegian  in  atmosphere 
— mountains,  fjords,  and  people  all  came 
back  to  us  with  a  rush,  but  the  character 
of  Inger  Johanne  is  universal  in  its  ap- 
peal. She  is  so  purely  objective  and  so 
entirely  natural  that  her  adventures  and 
pranks  will  interest  boys  as  well  as  girls. 
We  have  already  shared  the  chapter  on 
"Traveling  with  a  Billy  Goat"  with  a  boy 
of  ten,  who  says  Inger  Johanne  is  more  like 
Tom  Sawyer  than  anybody  else.  The 
chapter  on  "Christmas  Mumming,"  and 
the  one  dealing  with  Inger  Johanne's  de- 
sire to  be  a  circus  rider,  are  capital  for 
reading  aloud.  These  stories  have  been 
popular  in  Norway  since  their  first  appear- 
ance in  1890.  The  illustrations  by  Mrs. 
Florence  Liley  Young  give  an  admirable 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  ill 

and  very  understanding  interpretation  of 
the  text.  We  regret  that  the  book  does 
not  appear  in  more  distinctive  form.  It 
looks  too  much  like  a  great  many  other 
books  for  girls,  and  with  its  strange  title 
will  need  introduction  to  take  its  full  place 
in  a  library  collection.  It  is  just  the  kind 
of  book  we  have  been  asking  for  as  a  girl's 
story,  and  we  are  not  surprised  that  it 
comes  from  Norway.  We  have  been  wait- 
ing years  for  an  English  rendering  of  the 
Norse  myths  by  a  Norwegian. 

"Czechoslovak  Fairy  Tales"  is  the  most 
distinctive  and  interesting  of  the  juvenile 
publications  of  a  new  New  York  firm. 
Parker  Fillmore  has  retold  these  Bohemian 
folk-tales  with  a  fine  appreciation  of  fancy, 
fun,  and  fairies  impossible  to  render  in  a 
literal  translation,  of  which  we  have  read 
several.  In  "Katcha  and  the  Devil"  the 
characteristics  of  the  Bohemian  devil  are 
revealed.  Like  the  Norwegian  troll  he  is 
often  terrifying  in  appearance,  but  is  easily 
imposed  upon  and  is  generally  made  the 
butt  of  all  sorts  of  jokes  and  pranks.  We 
read  "The  Golden  Godmother"  last  sum- 


112    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

mer  and  were  then  impressed  by  Mr.  Fill- 
more's  background  of  reading  and  study, 
and  his  very  human  application  of  it  to  a 
difficult  piece  of  work.  The  frontispiece 
and  cover  design — three  little  brides  with 
a  peacock — are  in  the  brilliant  colors  of  the 
Czech  national  costume.  They  are  the 
work  of  Jan  Matulka,  a  young  Bohemian 
artist,  who  has  also  done  the  full  page  il- 
lustrations and  the  striking  decoration  in 
black  and  white.  We  have  not  seen  the 
finished  book,  but  we  wish  there  might 
have  been  more  illustrations  in  color  and 
a  more  spacious  setting  for  them.  The  book 
is  unique. 

Seumas  MacManus  has  written  a  char- 
acteristic book  of  Irish  stories  called  "Lo 
and  Behold  Ye!"  "The  Man  Who 
Would  Dream"  is  a  story  with  which  to  de- 
light boys  on  Hallowe'en.  Many  of  the 
stories  are  good  for  reading  aloud  and  for 
the  story-teller.  "Doctor  Danny,"  Irish 
stories  by  Ruth  Sawyer,  who  heard  some 
of  the  tales  she  tells  on  a  long-ago  visit 
to  Ireland,  was  published  early  in  the  year 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  113 

and  immediately  added  to  our  collection  of 
books  for  older  girls  and  boys. 

The  outlook  in  stories  for  girls  is  en- 
couraging. "The  Pool  of  Stars,"  by  Cor- 
nelia Meigs,  is  a  very  well-written  story, 
sustaining  until  the  end  a  mystery,  and 
good  comradeship  between  a  boy  and  girl 
of  high  school  age. 

Mrs.  Seaman's  "The  Slipper  Point  Mys- 
tery" is  for  younger  girls.  It  is  an  out-of- 
doors  story  with  a  touch  of  history,  some 
adventure,  and  a  very  nice  friendship  be- 
tween two  girls. 

"The  Refugee  Family,"  by  Flavia  Can- 
field,  is  not  as  interesting  a  story  as  the 
title  promises.  The  information  is  au- 
thentic and  there  is  some  account  of  the 
work  of  the  American  Committee  for  Dev- 
astated France.  Story-reading  girls  want 
atmosphere  and  color,  and  these  are  to  be 
found  in  "Comrade  Rosalie,"  by  Mary 
Constance  Du  Bois,  and  "Vive  La  France," 
first  written  for  St.  Nicholas  by  the 
Knipes.  Both  stories  are  interesting  and 
well  written.  Mrs.  Abbott  has  set  the 
stage  for  too  many  characters  and  situa- 


114    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

tions  in  "Larkspur."  The  Girl  Scout  in- 
terest was  crowded  out  by  the  French  or- 
phan, her  grandmother,  and  a  German  spy. 
German  spies  are  in  all  the  stories  with  war 
interest.  But  we  prefer  reading  of  them  to 
having  anything  to  do  with  "Rosemary 
Greenaway"  or  her  family.  Joslyn  Gray 
writes  too  well  to  go  on  presenting  life  so 
morbidly.  "Betty  Bell,"  by  Fannie  Kil- 
bourne,  is  not  in  the  least  like  Miss  Alcott's 
stories.  It  is  a  very  readable,  thoroughly 
sophisticated,  and  well  written  analysis 
of  a  cross-section  of  Betty  Bell  at  sixteen. 
We  do  not  recommend  the  book  for  chil- 
dren's reading.  In  the  libraries  its  title 
would  immediately  attract  girls  from  ten 
to  twelve  whose  mothers  would  object  to 
it.  It  is  more  nearly  comparable  to  "Sev- 
enteen" than  to  any  other  book,  but  that 
there  is  a  very  considerable  difference  we 
will  endeavor  to  show  in  another  article 
dealing  more  directly  with  the  reading  of 
older  girls  and  boys. 

That  girls  read  boys'  books  more  than 
they  ever  did,  and  that  they  always  have 
to  some  extent,  is  evidenced  by  our  own 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  115 

reaction  to  Walter  Dyer's  "Ben  the  Battle 
Horse."  No  one  who  loves  a  horse  could 
help  reading  that  book.  Our  one-time 
familiarity  with  the  life  and  habits  of 
horses,  assisted  by  a  book  of  colored  plates 
of  famous  trotting  horses,  laid  the  corner- 
stone of  our  library  experience  with  boys 
in  their  'teens.  Some  one  recommended 
reading  from  Baldwin's  "Horse  Fair,"  but 
the  boys  of  "Jackson's  Hollow"  would 
have  none  of  it.  This  book  would  have  held 
them  spellbound.  We  think  a  good  many 
girls  will  read  "Bob  Thorpe,  Sky  Fighter 
in  the  Lafayette  Flying  Corps."  Why 
shouldn't  they*?  The  book  is  not  merely 
an  exciting  story;  Austin  Bishop  has  fur- 
nished accurate  information  on  the  subject 
of  flying  in  readable  form.  "The  Romance 
of  Aircraft,"  by  Laurence  Yard  Smith, 
gives  an  interesting  historical  account  of 
flying  for  boys  and  girls,  although  written 
for  older  readers.  "Up  the  Mazaruni  for 
Diamonds,"  by  William  J.  La  Varre,  is 
so  well  written  and  illustrated  by  photo- 
graphs taken  by  the  young  explorer  him- 
self and,  moreover,  so  well  printed,  that  we 


ii6    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

found  ourselves  reading  it  a  second  time. 
The  book  has  an  introduction  by  Mr. 
Fiala. 

"Shasta  of  the  Wolves,"  by  Olaf  Baker, 
an  English  author,  also  attracted  us  for 
reading  aloud  and  for  the  fine  illustrations 
by  Charles  Livingston  Bull. 

We  hu  e  just  discovered  why,  with  the 
best  intentions,  we  cannot  read  "The  Book 
of  Bravery,  Second  Series."  It  is  arranged 
in  "an  ascending  scale  of  courage."  The 
third  series  due  in  1920  will  be  the  highest. 
We  shall  begin  at  the  top.  We  have  grave 
suspicions  that  many  boys  are  waiting  to 
do  the  same  thing.  The  work  has  some- 
what the  value  of  collective  biography  for 
library  and  school  purposes. 

Elva  S.  Smith  has  edited  a  valuable 
collection  of  patriotic  verse  and  prose. 
"Good  Old  Stories,"  selected  by  Miss 
Smith,  who  dedicated  this  collection  to 
Caroline  M.  Hewins  of  the  Hartford  Pub- 
lic Library,  was  published  earlier  in  the 
year.  Miss  Smith's  feeling  for  literature 
for  children  and  her  long  experience  of 
appraising  it  for  the  Carnegie  Library  of 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  117 

Pittsburgh  are  expressed  in  her  compila- 
tions. 

Franklin  K.  Mathiews's  "Boy  Scouts 
Book  of  Stories"  comprises  a  good  selec- 
tion of  well-known  stories  from  Mark 
Twain,  Quiller-Couch,  O.  Henry,  and 
others. 

William  Heyliger's  "High  Benton,"  we 
are  told,  is  the  best  story  he  has  written. 

Harold  Latham's  "Marty  Lends  a 
Hand"  is  a  distinct  advance  over  his  book 
of  last  year.  The  boys  are  not  yet  quite 
so  free  from  supervision  as  we  like  to  have 
them  in  a  boy's  book,  but  the  mushroom 
growing  in  the  old  copper  mine  was  a 
clever  idea  and  there  are  German  spies  to 
be  dealt  with.  Mr.  Barbour  has  written 
four  books.  "The  Heart  of  Pinocchio"  is 
not  kin  to  the  well-known  classic  and  will 
prove  a  disappointment  to  those  who  order 
it  without  examination.  There  are  several 
more  books  for  little  children.  "The 
Scotch  Twins,"  by  Lucy  Fitch  Perkins,  was 
not  available  for  examination.  "News 
from  Notown,"  by  Eleanor  Ellis  Perkins, 
is  a  book  of  humorous  verses,  illustrated 


n8    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

by  her  mother,  Lucy  Fitch  Perkins.  Of 
books  of  verse,  we  would  choose  "When 
We  Were  Little:  Children's  Rhymes  of 
Oyster  Bay,"  by  Mary  Fanny  Youngs, 
with  an  introduction  by  Theodore  Roose- 
velt, and  illustrated  by  photographs  of  the 
Roosevelt  children.  "The  Burgess  Bird 
Book,"  by  Thornton  Burgess,  with  fifty- 
seven  colored  plates  drawn  by  Louis 
Agassiz  Fuertes,  has  been  described  by  Dr. 
William  T.  Hornaday  as  the  best  chil- 
dren's book  on  bird  life  in  existence.  "The 
Children's  Life  of  the  Bee,"  selected  and 
arranged  by  Alfred  Sutro  and  Herschel 
Williams,  preserves  the  spirit  and  very 
largely  the  language  of  Maeterlinck.  One 
of  the  most  beautiful  books  of  the  year  is 
illustrated  by  Jessie  Willcox  Smith.  "At 
the  Back  of  the  North  Wind"  has  given 
her  opportunity  to  reveal  a  depth  and 
imagination  beyond  anything  in  her  earlier 
work.  There  is  also  a  new  and  smaller 
edition  of  "The  Water  Babies,"  illus- 
trated by  the  same  artist,  and  the  color- 
ful poster  for  "Children's  Book  Week" 
was  made  by  Jessie  Willcox  Smith. 


HOLIDAY  BOOKS  119 

"The  Book  of  Wonder  Voyages,"  by 
Joseph  Jacobs,  has  been  reprinted  in  a  re- 
duced size.  "Good  Wolf,"  by  Frances 
Hodgson  Burnett,  appears  in  a  reprint  as 
if  it  were  a  new  story.  "Saint  Joan  of 
Arc,"  by  Mark  Twain,  is  a  short  sketch 
with  an  attractive  cover  and  three  illus- 
trations in  color  by  Howard  Pyle.  Boutet 
de  Monvel's  "Joan  of  Arc"  is  being  re- 
printed in  English. 

Every  time  we  try  to  write  down  our 
impressions  of  "A  Journey  to  the  Garden 
Gate,"  by  Ralph  M.  Townsend,  "David 
Blaize  and  the  Blue  Door"  comes  to  mind. 
They  are  both  dream  stories,  but  very  dif- 
ferent. We  think  Mr.  Townsend's  story  is 
well  written,  and  that  it  will  be  enjoyed  by 
exceptional  children.  As  for  "David 
Blaize"  he  already  has  a  distinct  place; 
the  chapter  on  flying  is  a  never-ending 
joy.  "David  Blaize"  is  constantly  meet- 
ing "Jeremy"  behind  "The  Blue  Door" 
in  our  imagination.  Why  shouldn't  he"? 
David  Blaize  was  six  when  he  found  the 
key  and  Jeremy  was  eight  on  the  birth- 


120    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

day  his  Uncle  Samuel  gave  him  the  toy 
village.  They  are  wonderful  books,  these 
two,  and  each  seems  to  deepen  the  impres- 
sion of  the  other. 


CHAPTER  SIX 

CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN  AND 
THEIR  BOOKS 

And  gardens,  gardens,  night  and  day, 
Gardens  and  childhood  all  the  way. 

ALICE   MEYNELL. 

"As  wise  as  a  child  four  years  old." 

TT  was  William  Butler  Yeats  who  quoted 
the  old  Irish  proverb  and  suggested  its 
bearing  on  the  survival  of  poetry  and  fairy 
tales  in  Ireland.  By  happy  chance  the 
day  was  St.  Patrick's,  and  when  Mr.  Yeats 
had  finished  reading  out  of  one  of  Lady 
Gregory's  books,  we  went  back  to  our  desk 
in  the  children's  room  of  the  Pratt  Insti- 
tute Free  Library,  with  songs  of  the  poets 
who  had  dipped  their  pens  deepest  in  the 
wisdom  and  faith,  the  beauty  and  fancy 
of  childhood,  thrilling  our  consciousness. 
The  room  was  filled  with  restless  chil- 

121 


122    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

dren  of  many  races.  Little  brothers  and 
sisters  three,  four,  and  five  years  old  had 
come  with  big  boys  and  girls  eight,  ten, 
and  twelve  years  old  to  listen  to  the  stories 
and  poetry  with  which  we  were  accus- 
tomed to  celebrate  the  day  and  the  coming 
of  spring: 

When  afther  the  Winter  alarmin' 

The  Spring  steps  in  so  charmin' 

So  smilin'  an'  arch 

In  the  middle  o'  March 

With  her  hand  St.  Patrick's  arm  on! 


The  verse  always  heralded  the  day,  tak- 
ing its  place  beside  an  old  print  of  St. 
Patrick.  On  the  table  below,  books  were 
opened  up  and  shamrocks  grew  beside  the 
flowers  so  often  mentioned  in  stories  and 
poems  of  springtime — daffodils,  the  nar- 
cissus poetica,  a  crocus,  a  violet,  or  an 
hepatica  nursed  into  early  bloom  by  an 
old  English  gardener,  whose  cobbler's 
shop  led  into  a  greenhouse.  This  gardener, 
for  he  was  a  cobbler  only  by  circumstance, 
"ran  away  from  the  shoes"  when  a  lad  of 


CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN    123 

twelve ;  and  lived  and  worked  long  enough 
in  the  gardens  of  England  to  carry  about 
with  him  a  rare  love  of  flowers,  an  ex- 
pert knowledge  of  plant  life  in  all  its  vary- 
ing forms,  and  a  deep  appreciation,  born 
of  his  own  hunger  for  beauty  in  boyhood, 
of  the  place  of  nature  in  any  form  of  edu- 
cation of  children.  He  shared  with  us  the 
desire  to  reflect  in  the  children's  library  of 
a  great  city  the  life  of  the  woods,  the 
streams,  the  meadows,  the  hillsides  and 
gardens  of  a  more  spacious  childhood. 

Very  early  in  our  work  of  satisfying 
children  with  books,  we  had  discovered 
how  many  of  the  stories  and  poems  known 
and  loved  by  us  as  children  were  meaning- 
less to  children  who  had  never  seen  the 
country  in  springtime,  and  whose  parents 
seemed  to  have  forgotten  their  childhood. 
The  "nature  study"  of  the  schools  was  as 
yet  unfortified  by  botanical  specimens,  or 
by  the  expanding  resources  of  the  Chil- 
dren's Museum  of  Brooklyn. 

"We  have  been  listening  to  a  poet,"  we 
told  the  children  on  that  St.  Patrick's  Day, 
"a  poet  who  says  there  are  still  fairies  in 


124    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Ireland."  And  then  Allingham's  "Fairies" 
trooped  forth,  and  from  "The  Songs  of 
Innocence"  William  Blake's  "PifSer," 
"The  Laughing  Song,"  and  "The  Lamb"; 
Wordsworth's  "March,"  Celia  Thaxter's 
"Spring,"  Miss  Mulock's  "Green  Things 
Growing,"  Emily  Dickinson's  "The 
Grass."  We  did  not  hesitate  to  share  Mr. 
Yeats's  own: 

I  will  arise  and  go  now,  and  go  to  Innisfree, 
And  a  small  cabin  build  there,  of  clay  and 

wattles  made; 
Nine  bean  rows  will  I  have  there,  a  hive  for 

the  honey  bee, 
And  live  alone  in  the  bee-loud  glade. 

We  have  never  hesitated  to  share  a  poem 
we  feel  we  would  have  liked  as  a  child. 
We  recall  how  still  the  room  grew  as  we 
read: 

I  will  arise  and  go  now,  for  always  night  and 

day 
I  hear  lake  water  lapping  with  low  sounds  by 

the  shore ; 

While  I  stand  on  the  roadway,  or  on  the  pave- 
ments gray, 
I  hear  it  in  the  deep  heart's  core. 


CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN    125 

There  was  a  fairy  story,  of  course,  and  we 
were  ending  with  "The  Jumblies"  and 
other  nonsense  verses  when  some  one  called 
out: 

'  'Up  the  airy  mountain 
Down  the  rushy  glen' 

again !"  This  time  several  voices  mingled 
in  Allingham's  "Fairies." 

In  that  far-off  time  many  libraries  still 
observed  an  age  limit  of  ten  or  twelve 
years,  and  gravely  questioned  the  propriety 
of  reading  aloud  to  children  or  telling 
stories  to  children  in  a  room  from  which 
books  were  being  circulated  or  consulted 
in  answering  the  casual  questions  brought 
from  the  schools.  The  public  schools  of 
Brooklyn  observed  a  grade  limit.  "Chil- 
dren below  the  third  grade  do  not  read  well 
enough  to  profit  from  the  use  of  library 
books,"  we  were  told.  The  system  of  class- 
room libraries  had  not  then  been  intro- 
duced. The  children  in  question  ranged 
in  age,  we  found,  from  five  or  six  to  eight, 
and  sometimes  even  nine  years  if  they 
were  backward  in  learning  to  read. 


126    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Primers  and  easy  reading-books  were  by 
no  means  as  attractive  as  they  are  now, 
and  a  child  who  was  not  a  natural  reader 
had  very  little  incentive  unless  he  could 
range  over  a  number  of  picture  books  and 
illustrated  books.  What  was  to  be  done 
for  these  children  who  had  no  books  at 
home,  or  having  them  felt  no  desire  to 
open  them  for  their  pleasure"? 

What  is  to  be  done  for  such  children 
anywhere  ?  That  thousands  of  them  have 
been  growing  up  in  America,  we  have 
only  to  look  at  our  statistics  of  illiteracy 
to  learn. 

Fortunately  for  us  and  for  the  chil- 
dren of  those  pioneer  days  in  the  history 
of  children's  libraries,  the  director  of  the 
Pratt  Institute  Free  Library,  Mary 
Wright  Plummer,  was  a  poet — with  a  deep 
realization  of  the  needs  and  the  desires  of 
children — as  well  as  a  practical  adminis- 
trator and  educator  of  international  repu- 
tation. Into  the  plans  of  the  architect  for 
this  library  she  had  set  a  children's  room 
with  southern  exposure,  connected  by 
open  archways  with  the  book  stacks  and 


CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN    127 

open  shelves  of  the  circulation  department 
and  of  the  general  reading  room. 

This  children's  room,  the  first  in  the 
country  to  be  included  in  an  architect's 
plan,  was  the  first  to  be  furnished  with 
chairs  and  tables  of  varying  height,  the 
first  to  consider  the  right  of  little  children 
to  enjoy  books,  and  their  physical  comfort 
in  so  doing.  So  far  as  we  know,  it  was 
the  first  library  to  make  the  circulation 
of  books  subordinate  to  familiar  acquaint- 
ance with  books  and  pictures  in  a  free 
library,  and  to  give  picture  books  by  well- 
known  European  artists  a  place  on  the 
walls  and  the  shelves  of  the  children's 
room  as  well  as  of  its  art  department.  Here 
Boutet  de  Monvel's  "Jeanne  D'Arc"  be- 
came a  children's  book. 

From  the  low  windows,  children  and 
grown  people  looked  out  upon  a  terraced 
playground  down  which  the  children  rolled 
and  tumbled  in  summer  and  coasted  in 
winter — for  the  trustees  of  this  institution 
had  played  as  boys  in  the  neighborhood 
and  had  forgotten  none  of  their  interests. 
Their  desire  for  this  children's  library  was 


128    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

that  it  should  grow  to  seem  a  homelike 
and  familiar  place  to  the  children  of  the 
city.  The  Brooklyn  Public  Library,  with 
its  unique  Brownsville  Children's  Branch 
Library,  had  not  yet  come  into  existence. 
Many  of  the  children  walked  miles  for 
their  books,  or  in  turn  paid  car-fare  for 
one  boy  that  he  might  select  books  for  a 
group  of  his  friends. 

It  clearly  would  not  do  to  circulate 
books  of  which  we  had  no  first-hand  knowl- 
edge and  recent  experience.  We  were  left 
free  to  take  our  own  way  in  bringing  books 
and  children  of  all  ages  together.  We 
chose  the  way  leading  back  to  our  own 
childhood  and  its  first  interests  in  read- 
ing. It  may  take  a  long  time  to  get  an 
emotional  grasp  of  the  child  we  used  to 
be,  and  an  intellectual  perception  of  any 
one  of  several  varieties  we  might  have 
become  in  a  later  generation ;  but  the  chase 
is  exhilarating  and  we  recommend  the  ef- 
fort to  all  parents,  teachers,  and  librarians 
who  would  really  know  books  in  their  re- 
lation to  growing  children. 

I  was  not  a  bookish  child,  I  discovered, 


CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN    129 

although  I  had  always  cared  to  read.  I 
have  no  recollection  of  any  process  or 
method  by  which  I  learned  to  read,  but 
I  hold  a  very  vivid  recollection  of  the  first 
book  from  which  I  read.  It  was  a  large 
print  edition  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John. 
The  time  was  early  evening  and  I  went  to 
bed  thrilled  with  the  discovery,  and  the 
beauty  of  the  words.  I  told  no  one  until  I 
could  read  well.  I  may  have  been  five  or 
even  six  years  old,  I  have  never  been  sure, 
but  I  recall  very  definitely  that  I  brought 
to  the  reading  of  poetry,  the  psalms,  and 
the  prophets  strong  impressions  of  the 
beauty  of  the  country  about  me.  Beyond 
Mt.  Washington  lay  the  world,  just  out  of 
sight,  and  beyond  the  low  horizon  line  to 
the  southeast  lay  the  sea.  I  had  seen  the 
sea,  but  I  had  not  seen  the  world,  and  I 
was  always  wondering  about  it. 

This  sense  of  wonder  and  mystery,  the 
beauty  of  nature,  the  passing  from  night  to 
day,  the  speaking  voices  of  the  people 
about  me,  the  sound  of  music  are  present 
in  my  earliest  recollections.  I  had  a  keen 
interest  in  pictures  and  I  was  always  see- 


130    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

ing  things  in  pictures.  I  had  no  gift  for 
drawing  and  the  mechanics  of  writing  was 
extremely  difficult  for  me.  I  shall  never 
be  able  to  unearth  a  manuscript  written 
before  the  age  of  ten.  My  early  literary 
compositions  were  all  scribbled  and  dis- 
patched by  post.  I  never  had  a  doubt  that 
what  I  whispered  as  I  scribbled  was  read 
by  the  cousin  or  brother  to  whom  it  was 
sent.  Writing,  like  going  to  school,  was 
a  social  experience  full  of  news  of  people 
and  of  what  they  said  and  did.  Never  did 
I  write  out  of  deeper  emotions.  I  hated 
goodness  in  books  and  the  tendency  to  get 
everybody  to  behave  alike,  in  life  or  in 
books. 

The  invitation  to  read  was  all  over  the 
house,  and  on  stormy  days  I  roamed 
through  the  rooms,  following  my  brothers 
from  library  to  attic,  seeing  what  the  books 
were  like,  often  watching  them  reading  and 
trying  to  read  their  books.  The  bound  vol- 
umes of  St.  Nicholas,  Our  Young  Folks, 
and  Harper's  Magazine  were  always  in 
the  offing  and  long  before  I  could  read 
I  was  familiar  with  their  illustrations. 


CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN    131 

I  did  not  care  to  be  read  to,  except  by 
my  father,  who  read  just  as  he  talked  and 
seemed  to  like  the  same  books  and  pic- 
tures I  did.  The  Nursery  was  his  fa- 
vorite magazine,  I  firmly  believed  not  be- 
cause he  said  it  was,  but  because  he  seemed 
so  interested  in  it.  I  associate  with  his 
reading  the  most  beautiful  parts  of  the 
Bible,  ^Esop's  "Fables"  interspersed  with 
proverbs,  nonsense  verses,  old  songs  and 
hymns,  a  great  deal  of  poetry,  stories  out 
of  the  lives  of  great  men,  and  many  stories 
of  child  life.  He  had  a  keen  sense  of  dram- 
atic values,  a  power  of  mimicry  of  animals 
and  human  beings,  a  strong  sense  of  humor, 
and  an  intimate  knowledge  of  men  in  their 
various  forms  of  social  and  political  or- 
ganization. Moreover,  he  possessed  the 
rare  faculty  of  complete  identification  with 
the  emotional  life  of  childhood  in  all  its 
stages  of  growth  and  change,  and  the  im- 
agination to  know  when  to  create  a  diver- 
sion. Since  my  intuitions  have  been  at  all 
times  keener  than  my  powers  of  external 
observation,  I  identified  myself  in  turn 
with  the  childhood  of  my  father.  I  seemed 


132    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

to  have  known  him  well  as  a  little  boy. 
That  I  was  like  him  in  certain  qualities 
of  mind  I  was  to  learn  in  maturity;  that 
I  shared  his  emotional  life,  I  knew  as  well 
at  four  or  five  years  old  as  at  his  death, 
when  I  was  twenty. 

We  make  no  apology  for  dipping  back 
into  our  childhood  and  the  childhood  of 
our  work,  in  this  introductory  consider- 
ation of  the  reading  of  children  under  ten 
years  old.  We  warn  the  reader  it  will  not 
tell  him  just  the  book  to  read  or  to  buy 
for  the  child  he  is  interested  in.  We  have 
never  liked  the  idea  of  selecting  "best 
books"  for  anybody, — least  of  all  for  a 
child  who  is  trying  out  the  reading  habit, 
we  dare  not  set  an  age  limit  for  the  read- 
ing of  a  book.  But  we  feel  no  hesitation 
in  bringing  together  a  group  of  books, 
which  we  shall  describe  as  "Some  First 
Books"  and  a  second  group  that  we  shall 
call  "Some  Later  Books." 

There  have  been  many  and  important 
changes  since  1900  in  the  attitude  toward 
the  younger  children  in  schools  and  librar- 
ies. Not  only  is  there  a  great  deal  more 


CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN    133 

story-telling  and  reading  of  poetry  in  both 
institutions;  but  school  principals  and 
teachers  of  vision,  who  have  always  been 
readers  and  lovers  of  books,  have  made  it 
possible  for  classes  of  school  children  to 
come  to  public  libraries  for  a  larger  view 
of  the  countries  about  which  they  are 
studying,  or  just  to  read  books  and  see 
pictures  in  an  environment  which  is  known 
to  invite  reading. 

There  are  to  be  still  greater  changes 
following  close  upon  the  war  in  all  coun- 
tries. Children  are  from  birth  to  have 
better  physical  conditions.  Mentally  and 
spiritually  they  must  live  in  a  larger  world 
than  the  generation  that  has  preceded 
them.  There  are  those  who  hold  that  chil- 
dren should  have  no  books  until  long  after 
they  are  ten  years  old.  We  do  not  pro- 
pose to  argue  the  question,  but  rather  to 
give  books  their  natural  place  in  the  ex- 
panding lives  of  the  children  we  see  about 
us. 

Believing  that  there  is  no  such  person 
as  "the  average  child"  under  ten  years  old, 
we  are  prepared  to  learn  from  children  as 


134    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

widely  different  and  environed  as  Daisy 
Ashford  and  Miss  Edge  worth's  "Rosa- 
mond." Ever  since  "The  Young  Visiters" 
was  published,  we  have  wanted  to  pay 
tribute  to  Mrs.  Ashford,  or  whoever  was 
responsible  for  the  preservation  of  the 
record  of  Daisy's  spontaneity  and  lack  of 
self-consciousness.  Rosamond's  mother 
would  have  persuaded  her  to  consign  the 
precious  volume  to  the  flames  if  she  could 
have  left  her  along  long  enough  to  get  it 
written.  There  has  never  been  the  slight- 
est doubt  in  our  minds  that  Daisy  Ashford 
wrote  the  book  and  wrote  it  when  she  was 
nine  years  old,  spelling  and  all.  We  share 
Mr.  Herford's  feeling  about  Barrie's  pref- 
ace and  tell  everybody  to  read  it  last.  The 
author,  we  think,  need  not  have  read  many 
novels.  The  "Idear"  was  the  thing  and 
her  unswerving  development  of  it  is  an  in- 
centive to  all  who  would  write.  Moreover, 
we  look  upon  its  publication,  and  the  lively 
criticism  attending  it,  as  one  more  indica- 
tion that  we  are  entering  upon  a  freer  and 
more  illuminating  period  of  communica- 
tion with  childhood  and  children. 


CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN    135 

Is  Hugh  Walpole's  "Jeremy"  auto- 
biographic *?  We  do  not  know  and  we  shall 
not  press  the  question.  We  do  know 
that  he  could  not  have  written  it  without 
first  putting  himself  in  Jeremy's  place.  Of 
all  the  children  we  have  lately  found  in 
books,  Nicky  and  Michael  in  "The  Tree  of 
Heaven,"  and  Mary  Olivier  seem  to  Us  to 
have  been  drawn  by  the  most  unerring 
hand.  May  Sinclair  has  made  us  think 
long  and  hard.  It  is  high  time  the  con- 
temporary novelists  who  have  the  under- 
standing and  intuition  began  to  create  more 
child  characters. 

The  publication  of  Wordsworth's 
"Lyrical  Ballads"  marked  the  discovery 
of  childhood.  Poverty  and  childhood 
emerged  at  the  same  time  to  claim  their 
naturalization  papers — in  poetry,  at  the 
hands  of  Wordsworth;  in  prose,  in  the 
novels  of  Dickens.  Too  rarely,  up  to  the 
present  time,  has  a  child  been  brought  into 
a  novel  to  take  his  place  in  life.  It  is  a 
good  omen  for  the  novel  as  well  as  for  edu- 
cation in  general  to  have  him  enter.  As 
early  as  1902  the  Swedish  Government 


136    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

had  the  foresight  to  commission  the  most 
distinguished  novelist  of  the  country  to 
write  a  book  for  children.  Selma  Lager- 
lof  gave  three  years  to  the  preparation  of 
her  background  of  scientific  fact  and  poetic 
fancy  for  "The  Wonderful  Adventures  of 
Nils."  "Nils  Holgersson"  was  written 
for  Swedish  children  of  nine  years  and 
older,  but  we  know  a  little  American  girl 
between  five  and  six  who  says  she  likes 
it  better  than  any  book  she  has  ever  heard 
read.  We  read  "David  Blaize  and  the 
Blue  Door"  to  this  same  little  girl  and 
her  sister  "going  on  eight,"  down  in  the 
Blue  Ridge  Mountains,  in  September. 
Their  younger  sister,  not  yet  "four  years 
old"  but  "as  wise,"  was  captivated,  as 
were  the  other  two,  by  Mr.  Ford's  pictures, 
and  she  listened  to  parts  of  the  story. 

Friendship  with  David  was  established 
immediately.  We  know  it  would  be  with 
children.  We  took  a  week  to  read  the 
book  and  could  write  a  whole  article  about 
it,  since  Mr.  Benson  is  quite  manifestly  one 
of  the  contemporary  novelists  who  has  been 
dipping  back  into  the  dreams  and  fancies, 


CHILDREN  UNDER  TEN    137 

the  sense  and  nonsense,  of  his  childhood. 

The  eldest  of  the  three  little  girls  is 
devoted  to  Punch,  and  has  been  for  two 
or  three  years.  Her  interest  in  cartoons — 
she  has  been  mercifully  spared  the 
"comics"  of  the  Sunday  newspapers — is 
suggestive.  Why  shouldn't  some  con- 
temporary illustrators  dip  back  into  their 
childhood  like  the  novelists'?  Tony 
Sarg's  clever  drawing  for  a  very  poor  little 
story  so  charmed  these  children — who  have 
a  natural  taste  for  the  humor  that  ema- 
nates from  the  artist,  regardless  of  text — 
as  to  suggest  no  end  of  possibilities. 

In  that  fascinating  life  of  Kate  Green- 
away,  which  should  never  be  allowed  to  go 
out  of  print,  there  is  a  skit  by  Randolph 
Caldecott,  done  after  the  manner  of  Kate 
Greenaway,  that  is  both  amusing  and 
revealing  to  children  and  grownups  who 
like  to  look  at  pictures.  There  is  also  much 
evidence  of  Kate  Greenaway's  early  de- 
light in  cartoons. 

We  began  with  the  wisdom  and  the 
sense  of  beauty  inherent  in  childhood,  and 
we  would  end  with  a  plea  for  humor.  For 


138    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

humor  with  some  standard  of  imaginative 
conception,  accuracy  of  drawing,  and  suit- 
ability of  subject.  We  have  long  believed 
that  humor  should -be  given  its  due  in  the 
education  of  children.  The  solemnity  of 
the  process  of  education  has  made  too  easy 
the  way  that  leads  to  the  vulgarization  of 
art  and  the  prostitution  of  fancy.  To  the 
picture  books,  the  cartoons,  and  the  draw- 
ings— to  which  children  under  ten  years 
old  are  exposed— no  less  surely  than  to 
imaginative  writing,  must  we  look  for  the 
development  of  that  sound  streak  of  humor 
which  gets  one  behind  "the  Blue  Door" 
at  any  age.  Randolph  Caldecott  did  not 
hang  up  the  key  to  "the  Blue  Door"  on 
the  other  side.  He  passed  it  on  to  Leslie 
Brooke  of  England,  who  still  unlocks  it 
for  the  children  of  America. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS  FOR 
CHILDREN 

would  by  no  means  limit  the  read- 
ing of  a  given  boy  or  girl  to  the 
books  of  this  Jist  or  of  any  list  of  books  for 
children.  We  would  see  to  it  that  early 
connection  is  made  with  adult  books,  with 
histories,  books  of  travel  and  exploration, 
natural  histories,  the  sciences  and  the  arts. 
Allowance  must  be  made  for  a  wide  vari- 
ation of  taste  among  child  readers,  and  for 
the  capriciousness  of  childhood  which  fre- 
quently enjoys  at  a  later  period  or  under 
different  circumstances  the  book  rejected 
as  "silly"  or  "not  interesting." 

The  recently  published  letters  of  well- 
known  authors  concerning  the  books  they 
read  as  children  leave  us  with  a  stronger 
conviction  than  ever  that  the  crucial  point 
in  any  guidance  of  children's  reading  lies 
in  having  certain  books  at  hand  at  the 
139 


140    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

psychological  moment.  It  is  a  fatal  thing, 
especially  in  New  England,  to  delay  the 
first  reading  of  "Alice"  to  the  reasoning 
years.  Old  England  has  always  known* 
this  and  has  stood  by  the  sense  of  non- 
sense in  her  nurseries.  When  Hugh  Wai- 
pole  learned  to  read  by  reading  "Alice  in 
Wonderland,"  he  was  asserting  the  natural 
right  of  childhood  to  choose  for  itself 
among  the  books  at  hand.  No  one  who 
has  read  "Jeremy"  will  regret  that  "Alice" 
rather  than  "Jonas"  was  his  choice. 

In  response  to  many  inquiries  from  par- 
ents, and  out  of  a  varied  experience  in  the 
suggestion  of  children's  books  as  gifts,  we 
have  arranged  two  lists  of  books  in  an 
approximate  order  of  purchase  for  a  child 
or  a  family  of  children  under  ten  years 
old.  Many  of  the  books  will  be  read  to 
children  long  before  they  are  able  to  read 
for  themselves.  Herein  lies  the  real  op- 
portunity of  the  parent  or  teacher  who 
knows  how  to  read  nonsense  in  verse  or 
prose,  and  has  faith  in  the  power  and 
beauty  of  the  English  of  the  Bible,  the 
great  poets,  and  of  such  writers  as  Bunyan, 


TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS      141 

Defoe,  Hawthorne,  Stevenson  and  Kip- 
ling. The  selection  of  titles  has  been 
made  with  the  idea  of  giving  right  of  way 
to  literature  and  good  drawing  during  the 
most  impressionable  years  of  life. 

SOME  FIRST  BOOKS 

THE  FARMER'S  BOY.  ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR 
WITH  LINE  DRAWINGS  BY  RANDOLPH  CALDE- 
COTT.  FREDERICK  WARNE  AND  Co. 

We  have  given  this  book  in  paper  cov- 
ers, as  a  first  picture  book  to  many  chil- 
dren between  the  ages  of  one  and  three. 
Fifteen  more  indispensable  titles  of  old 
nursery  rhymes  will  be  found  on  its  cover. 
The  sixteen  books  may  be  had  in  boards 
in  two  or  in  four  volumes. 

MOTHER  GOOSE.  ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR  BY 
KATE  GREENAWAY.  FREDERICK  WARNE  AND 
Co. 

That  Kate  Greenaway  was  a  child  psy- 
chologist as  well  as  an  artist,  every  young 
mother  who  studies  her  drawings  will  dis- 
cover for  herself.  Her  "Marigold  Gar- 
den," "Under  the  Window,"  "The  Pied 


142    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Piper,"  "A  Apple  Pie,"  and  "A  Day  in 
a  Child's  Life"  should  be  added  very  early 
to  every  child's  library. 

A  CHILD'S  GARDEN  OF  VERSES.  BY  ROBERT  Louis 
STEVENSON.  ILLUSTRATED  IN  BLACK  AND 
WHITE  BY  CHARLES  ROBINSON.  CHARLES 
SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 

Kate  Greenaway's  child  pictures  and 
verses  suggested  to  Stevenson  the  writing 
of  his  own  verses  for  children. 

SONGS    OF    INNOCENCE.       BY    WlLLIAM    BLAKE. 

JOHN  LANE  Co. 

"The  most  perfect  expression  of  Blake's 
vision  of  life." — Scudder. 

THE  BIG  BOOK  OF  NURSERY  RHYMES.      EDITED  BY 

WALTER  C.  JERROLD.  ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR 
AND  IN  LINE  DRAWING  BY  CHARLES  ROBIN- 
SON. E.  P.  BUTTON  AND  Co. 

This  collection  has  been  a  favorite  gift 
book  for  about  fifteen  years.  It  contains 
other  verse  than  traditional  Mother  Goose 
melodies. 

THE    COMPLETE    NONSENSE    BOOK.       BY    EDWARD 

LEAR.  EDITED  BY  LADY  STRACHEY,  WITH  AN 
INTRODUCTION  BY  LORD  CROMER.  DUFFIELD 
AND  Co. 


TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS      143 

This  edition  contains  "all  the  original 
pictures  and  verses  together  with  new  ma- 
terial," c.  1912. 

THE  POSY  RING.  A  BOOK  OF  VERSE  FOR  CHIL- 
DREN. COMPILED  BY  KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN 
AND  NORA  ARCHIBALD  SMITH.  DOUBLEDAY, 
PAGE  AND  Co. 

We  would  add,  with  this  collection, 
E.  V.  Lucas's  "Book  of  Verses"  in  the 
more  expensive  of  the  two  editions,  pub- 
lished by  Henry  Holt  and  Co. 

THE  TALE  OF  PETER  RABBIT.      BY   BEATRIX  POT- 

TER.    FREDERICK  WARNE  AND  Co. 

The  "little  book"  makes  a  distinct  ap- 
peal to  many  children  and  no  one  has  un- 
derstood this  better  than  Beatrix  Potter. 
Her  "Tailor  of  Gloucester"  is  a  Christ- 
mas story. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  THREE  BEARS.      ILLUSTRATED 

IN  COLOR  AND  WITH  LINE  DRAWINGS  BY  L. 
LESLIE  BROOKE.    FREDERICK  WARNE  AND  Co. 

Leslie  Brooke's  "Three  Bears,"  "Three 
Little  Pigs,"  "Tom  Thumb,"  his  "Golden 
Goose,"  jand  his  nursery  rhymes  are  loved 


144    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

by  children  of  all  ages.     The  books  are 
published  in  paper  covers  and  in  boards. 

THE  CHILDREN'S  BOOK.  BY  HORACE  E.  SCUD- 
DER.  ILLUSTRATED.  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  Co. 

"A  collection  of  the  best  and  most  fa- 
mous stories  and  poems  in  the  English 
language." 

THE  BIBLE  FOR  CHILDREN.  ARRANGED  FROM 
THE  KING  JAMES  VERSION.  THE  CENTURY 
Co. 

THE  FABLES  OF  JESOP.  EDITED  BY  JOSEPH 
JACOBS.  ILLUSTRATED  BY  RICHARD  HEIGH- 
WAY.  THE  MACMILLAN  Co. 

GRIMM'S  FAIRY  TALES.  TRANSLATED  BY  MRS. 
EDWARD  LUCAS.  ILLUSTRATED  BY  ARTHUR 
RACKHAM.  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  Co. 

There  is  a  good  edition  of  Grimm,  ed- 
ited by  Lucy  Crane,  illustrated  by  Walter 
Crane,  and  published  by  the  Macmillan 
Co. 

ENGLISH  FAIRY  TALES.  EDITED  BY  JOSEPH  JA- 
COBS. G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS. 

Joseph  Jacobs  was  a  born  storyteller  as 
well  as  a  student  of  folk  lore.  His  ren- 
derings are  characterized  by  humor  and 
idiomatic  English. 


TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS      145 

JUST  SO  STORIES.  BY  RuDYARD  KlPLINO.  IL- 
LUSTRATED BY  THE  AUTHOR.  DOUBLEDAY, 
PAGE  AND  Co.  . 

The  "juvenile  edition,"  larger  in  size, 
is  more  attractive  to  young  children. 

A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF  DISCOVERY.      BY  HENDRIK 

WILLEM  VAN  LOON.    ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR 
BY  THE  AUTHOR.    DAVID  McKAY. 

"This  little  book  is  an  historical  appe- 
tizer. ...  It  merely  says :  Dear  Children : 
History  is  the  most  fascinating  and  enter- 
taining and  instructive  of  arts." 

THE  SONG  OF  HIAWATHA.  BY  HENRY  WADS- 
WORTH  LONGFELLOW.  ILLUSTRATED  BY  FRED- 
ERIC REMINGTON.  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  Co. 

The  childhood  of  Hiawatha  will  be  fa- 
miliar to  children  long  before  this  book, 
with  its  fine  pictures  of  American  Indian 
life,  is  added  to  their  library. 

BEAUTY  AND  THE  BEAST  PICTURE  BOOK.  ILLUS- 
TRATED IN  COLOR  BY  WALTER  CRANE.  JOHN 
LANE  Co. 

While  some  young  children  are  at- 
tracted by  the  strong  color  of  the  Walter 
Crane  picture  books,  especially  in  paper 


146    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

covers,  the  sumptuous  settings  and  cos- 
tumes make  a  more  definite  appeal  to  chil- 
dren already  familiar  with  fairy  tales. 

ALICE'S       ADVENTURES       IN       WONDERLAND.       BY 

LEWIS  CARROLL.    ILLUSTRATED  BY  SIR  JOHN 
TENNIEL.    THE  MACMILLAN  Co. 

"Through  the  Looking  Glass"  may  be 
had  in  a  separate  volume  or  bound  with 
"Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland." 

DAVID    BLAIZE   AND   THE    BLUE    DOOR.       BY    E.    F 

BENSON.     GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY. 

Like  "Alice"  this  book  is  the  story  of  a 
dream.  The  first  chapter  contains  valu- 
able information  concerning  imaginative 
boys  under  ten. 

THE  SLEEPING  BEAUTY,  AND  OTHER  TALES  FROM 
THE  OLD  FRENCH.  RETOLD  BY  SlR  ARTHUR 
QUILLER-COUCH.  ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR  BY 

EDMUND  DULAC.    GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COM- 
PANY. 

There  are  two  editions  of  this  fine  col- 
lection. The  larger  and  more  expensive 
one  contains  more  illustrations. 

SELECT    FABLES    FROM    LA    FONTAINE.      ADAPTED, 

AND  ILLUSTRATED  BY  M.  BOUTET  DE  MONVEL. 


TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS      147 

SOCIETY  FOR  PROMOTING  CHRISTIAN  KNOWL- 
EDGE. 
JOAN  OF  ARC.     ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR  BY  M. 

BOUTET  DE  MONVEL.      THE  CENTURY  Co. 

The  English  edition  of  this  wonderful 
book  has  just  come  back  into  print. 

THE   BROWNIES,  THEIR  BOOK.      BY  PALMER  COX. 

THE  CENTURY  Co. 

Palmer  Cox  studied  children's  interests 
so  faithfully  that  his  drawings  are  as  pop- 
ular as  ever. 

THE  CHICKEN  WORLD.      BY  E.  BoYD  SMITH.     G. 

P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS. 

Boyd  Smith  has  done  no  better  work 
than  in  this  picture  book  which  he  made 
several  years  ago  while  living  in  France. 

THE   HAPPY  HEART  FAMILY.      BY  VIRGINIA  GfiR- 

SON.     ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  AUTHOR.     DUF- 

FIELD  AND  Co. 

A  nonsense  story,  printed  for  little  chil- 
dren as  arranged  by  the  artist-author. 

JANE,   JOSEPH   AND  JOHN.      BY    RALPH   BERGEN- 

GREN.     ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR  BY  MAURICE 
E.  DAY.    ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS. 


148    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Ralph  Bergengren's  verses  are  modern 
but  are  childlike  in  spirit,  a  quality  sus- 
tained by  Maurice  Day  in  his  charming 
pictures  of  children  at  play. 


SOME  LATER  BOOKS 

THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS.  EDITED  BY  KATE  DoUG- 
LAS  WlGGIN  AND  NORA  ARCHIBALD  SMITH. 
ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR  BY  MAXFIELD  PAR- 
RISK.  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 

A  fuller  selection  of  stories  may  be 
found  in  the  collection  edited  by  Frances 
Jenkins  Olcott  and  published  by  Henry 
Holt  and  Co. 

THE     JUNGLE     BOOK.       BY     RuDYARD     KlPLING. 

THE  CENTURY  Co. 

The  Second  Jungle  Book  is  published 
as  a  companion  volume. 

UNCLE  REMUS;  HIS  SONGS  AND  HIS  SAYINGS. 
BY  JOEL  CHANDLER  HARRIS.  ILLUSTRATED  BY 
A.  B.  FROST.  D.  APPLETON  AND  Co. 

The  age  at  which  children  enjoy  "Un- 
cle Remus"  varies  with  their  distance  from 
the  South. 


TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS      149 

RIP    VAN    WINKLE.       BY    WASHINGTON     IRVING. 

ILLUSTRATED       BY       ARTHUR       RACKHAM. 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  AND  Co. 

Children  should  know  this  story  before 
they  are  asked  to  read  it  as  an  assignment. 

THE  PETERKIN  PAPERS.  BY  LUCRETIA  P.  HALE. 
HoUGHTON  MlFFLIN  Co. 

The  amusing  adventures  of  a  large  fam- 
ily. We  would  like  to  add  "The  William 
Henry  Letters"  of  Mrs.  Diaz,  but  it  is 
out  of  print. 

PINOCCHIO,  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  MARIONETTE. 
BY  CARLO  LORENZINI.  ILLUSTRATED  BY 
CHARLES  COPELAND.  GINN  AND  Co. 

The  best  known  and  most  popular  of 
Italian  fairy  tales.  The  illustrations  of 
the  Italian  original  are  fascinating  to  boys 
of  all  ages. 

THE  ROSE  AND  THE  RING.  BY  WlLLIAM  MAKE- 
PEACE THACKERAY,  WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY 
THE  AUTHOR.  G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS. 

Children  who  have  seen  Tony  Sarg's 
marionettes  made  after  Thackeray's  draw- 
ings will  read  the  book  at  an  earlier  age 
and  with  keen  perception  of  its  charm. 


150    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

THE  WONDER  BOOK.  BY  NATHANIEL  HAW- 
THORNE. ILLUSTRATED  BY  WALTER  CRANE. 

HOUGHTON     MlFFLIN     Co. 

"The  Wonder  Book"  and  "Tanglewood 
Tales"  are  included  in  the  same  volume  in 
an  edition  illustrated  by  Maxneld  Par- 
rish. 

THE    HEROES.       BY    CHARLES    KlNGSLEY.       THE 

MACMILLAN  Co. 

Kingsley's  fine  text  is  worthy  of  a  new 
and  attractive  edition. 

THE  ODYSSEY.      TRANSLATED  BY  S.  H.  BUTCHER 

AND  ANDREW  LANG.     THE  MACMILLAN  Co. 

The  best  version  from  which  to  read 
aloud.  "The  Children's  Homer"  by  Fa- 
draic  Colum  combines  the  story  of  the 
"Iliad"  and  the  "Odyssey"  in  a  form  more 
attractive  to  children. 

PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS.  BY  JOHN  BUNYAN.  IL- 
LUSTRATED BY  THE  BROTHERS  RHEAD.  THE 
CENTURY  Co. 

The  pictures  accompanying  this  text  in- 
vite more  children  to  read  "Pilgrim's 
Progress"  than  those  of  any  other  edition. 


TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS      151 

GOLDEN  NUMBERS,  A  BOOK  OF  VERSE  FOR 
YOUTH.  COMPILED  BY  KATE  DOUGLAS  WIG- 
GIN  AND  NORA  ARCHIBALD  SMITH.  DOUBLE- 
DAY,  PAGE  AND  Co. 

"The  Blue  Poetry  Book,"  edited  by  An- 
drew Lang  and  published  by  Longmans, 
Green  and  Co.,  contains  many  ballads  and 
is  one  of  the  few  collections  in  which  "The 
Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner"  is  to  be 
found.  Burton  Stevenson's  "Home  Book 
of  Verse  for  Young  Folks,"  published  by 
Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  should  also  be  given 
a  place. 

ANDERSEN'S  FAIRY  TALES.  TRANSLATED  BY  MRS, 
EDGAR  LUCAS.  E.  P.  DUTTON  AND  Co. 

The  edition  illustrated  by  T.  C.  and  W. 
Robinson  is  the  most  attractive  and  sat- 
isfactory. There  is  a  fine  large  edition 
translated  by  H.  L.  Braekstad,  with  illus- 
trations by  Hans  Tegner  and  an  introduc- 
tion by  Edmund  Gosse,  published  by  The 
Century  Co. 

IN    THE    DAYS    OF    GIANTS.       BY    AfiBIE    FARWELL 

BROWN.    HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  Co. 
The  best  introduction  to  Norse  Myths 
for  young  readers. 


152    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

THE     WONDERFUL    ADVENTURES     OF    NILS.       BY 

SELMA  LAGERLOF.    ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR  BY 
MARY  H.  FRYE.    DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  AND  Co. 
A  dream  story  with  Sweden  for  a  back- 
ground.    Written  for  children  nine  years 
old  by  Sweden's  greatest  living  novelist. 
Asbjornsen's  "Fairy  Tales  from  the  Far 
North"  is  unfortunately  out  of  print  in 
the  English  edition.    It  is  one  of  the  most 
valuable  of  all  collections  of  fairy  tales. 

A  LITTLE   BOY   LOST.      BY   W.   H.  HUDSON.      AL- 
FRED A.  KNOPF. 

A  dream  story  with  South  America  for 
its  background.  The  kind  of  story  that 
Hudson  the  naturalist  felt  he  might  have 
liked  when  a  child.  To  be  read  aloud. 

GULLIVER'S    TRAVELS.      BY    JONATHAN    SWIFT. 

ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR  BY  WILLY  POGANY. 

THE  MACMILLAN  Co. 

A  preference  is  often  expressed  for  the 
Cranford  edition  of  Gulliver. 

ROBINSON  CRUSOE.      BY  DANIEL  DEFOE.      ILLUS- 
TRATED   BY    Louis    AND    FREDERICK    RHEAD. 
HARPER  AND  BROS. 
No   illustrated   edition   of    "Robinson 

Crusoe"  has  yet  realized  the  possibilities 

suggested  by  the  text. 


TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS      153 

THE     SWISS     FAMILY     ROBINSON.        BY     JoHANN 

DAVID  WYSS.  ILLUSTRATED  BY  Louis 
RHEAD.  HARPER  AND  BROS. 

There  is  no  diminution  in  the  popular- 
ity of  the  resourceful  Swiss  Family. 

THE    STORY    OF    ROLAND.       BY    JAMES    BALDWIN. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 
We  would  always  read  from  "The  Song 
of  Roland." 

THE    MERRY   ADVENTURES   OF   ROBIN    HOOD.      BY 

HOWARD  PYLE.  ILLUSTRATED  IN  BLACK  AND 
WHITE  BY  THE  AUTHOR.  CHARLES  SCRIB- 
NER'S SONS. 

The  best  prose  rendering  of  Robin 
Hood. 

THE    BOY'S    KING   ARTHUR.       EDITED    BY    SlDNEY 

LANIER.  ILLUSTRATED  IN  COLOR  BY  N.  C. 
WYETH.  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 

Howard  Pyle's  four  large  volumes  may 
well  be  left  to  children  over  ten.  The 
first  and  the  last  of  the  Pyle  books  are  the 
best. 

DON  QUIXOTE  OF  THE  MANCHA.     BY  MlGUEL  DE 

CERVANTES-SAAVEDRA.  RETOLD  BY  JUDGE 
PARRY  AND  ILLUSTRATED  BY  WALTER  CRANE. 
JOHN  LANE  Co. 


154    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Many  children  need  Spanish  back- 
ground for  the  enjoyment  of  "Don 
Quixote." 

THE    BLUE    FAIRY    BOOK.       EDITED    BY    ANDREW 

LANG.    LONGMANS,  GREEN  AND  Co. 

A  favorite  collection  with  children  of 
all  ages.  The  versions  of  Andrew  Lang 
are  not  so  easy  to  read  aloud  as  are  those 
of  other  collections. 

THE  WONDER  CLOCK,  OR  FOUR  AND  TWENTY  MAR- 
VELLOUS TALES.  ADAPTED  BY  HOWARD  PYLE. 
ILLUSTRATED  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE  BY  THE 
AUTHOR.  HARPER  AND  BROS. 

"Pepper  and  Salt"  in  its  stories  and 
verses,  as  well  as  by  its  pictures,  appeals 
to  children  a  little  earlier  than  does  "The 
Wonder  Clock."  Both  collections  should 
be  included  in  a  children's  library. 

AT  THE  BACK  OF  THE  NORTH  WIND.      BY  GEORGE 

MACDONALD.    ILLUSTRATED  BY  JESSIE  WILL- 
COX  SMITH.    DAVID  McKAY. 

"The  Princess  and  the  Goblin"  and 
"The  Princess  and  Curdie"  are  usually 
enjoyed  by  younger  children  than  those 
who  read  of  "Little  Diamond"  and 


TWO  LISTS  OF  BOOKS      155 

"North  Wind."  Josephine  Daskam  Ba- 
con's tribute  to  George  MacDonald  *  in 
"On  Our  Hill"  places  these,  books  ad- 
mirably in  relation,  to  other  fairy  tales 
read  to  three  children  under  ten. 

THE  GOLDEN  SPEARS.  BY  EDMUND  LfiAMY.  DES- 
MOND FITZGERALD. 

This  unusual  collection  of  original  Irish 
fairy  tales  is  worthy  of  a  setting  more  in 
keeping  with  its  fine  literary  form. 

GRANNY'S  WONDERFUL  CHAIR.  BY  FRANCES 
BROWNE.  ILLUSTRATED  BY  KATHARINE  PYLE. 
E.  P.  BUTTON  AND  Co. 

The  charm  of  these  old  stories  told  by 
a  blind  poet  extends  to  the  children  of 
to-day. 

JACKANAPES.      BY     JULIANA     HORATIA     EwiNG. 

ILLUSTRATED  BY  RANDOLPH  CALDECOTT.  SO- 
CIETY FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  CHRISTIAN 
KNOWLEDGE. 

No  modern  edition  can  replace  the  one 
in  which  Caldecott  pictured  Jackanapes  on 
Lollo's  back  racing  over  Goose  Green. 

TALES    FROM    SHAKESPEARE.       BY    CHARLES    AND 

MARY  LAMB.  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 


156    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Some  children  prefer  Shakespeare  at 
first  hand,  but  for  those  who  do  not,  no 
rendering  has  approached  this  classic. 

BONAPARTE.       BY    GEORGES    MoNTORGUEIL.       IL- 
LUSTRATED IN  COLOR  BY  JOB.    BRENTANO'S. 

The  universal  interest  aroused  by  this 
book  and  by  the  eight  companion  volumes 
of  French  history  is  indicative  of  what  is 
needed  in  the  presentation  of  history  to 
children  and  young  people.  The  books 
are  all  written  by  the  same  author,  whose 
text  has  not  been  translated,  but  the  strik- 
ing feature  of  the  books  is  their  pictorial 
form.  They  are  illustrated  by  different 
artists  and  are  of  the  size  of  a  small  atlas 
with  decorative  colors.  The  books  are 
unique  in  design  and  we  suggest  the  pur- 
chase of  at  least  one  of  them.  We  would 
add  very  early  to  a  personal  library  for 
children,  books  illustrated  by  the  best 
artists  of  Sweden,  Russia,  Holland,  Japan, 
as  well  as  of  France.  They  are  invalu- 
able as  a  background  for  the  folk  tales, 
history,  and  geography  of  the  countries. 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

A  SPRING  REVIEW  OF 
CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 

Rosy  plum-tree,  think  of  me 

When  Spring  comes  down  the  world! 

HILDA  CONKLINO. 

ITTLE  did  we  think  when  we  were 
••— '  daring  enough  to  propose  a  spring 
review  of  books  for  children  that  we 
should  come  upon  anything  so  altogether 
charming  and  unusual  as  Hilda  Conkling's 
"Poems  by  a  Little  Girl."  Only  the  other 
day  we  had  said  of  modern  poetry  that  it 
had  little  to  say  of  childhood  or  to  chil- 
dren. Yet  here  is  a  book  of  poems  instinct 
with  the  spirit  of  childhood  and  so  child- 
like in  much  of  its  phrasing  as  to  make  a 
direct  and  permanent  appeal  to  children 
and  grown  people.  Moreover,  the  work 
is  unmistakably  that  of  a  child  whose 
157 


158    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

nature  is  rarely  understood  by  the  mother 
to  whom  the  little  book  is  dedicated : 

I  have  a  dream  for  you,  Mother, 

Like  a  soft  thick  fringe  to  hide  your  eyes. 

I  have  a  surprise  for  you,  Mother, 

Shaped  like  a  strange  butterfly. 

I  have  found  a  way  of  thinking 

To  make  you  happy ; 

I  have  made  a  song  and  a  poem 

All  twisted  into  one. 

If  I  sing,  you  listen ; 

If  I  think,  you  know. 

I  have  a  secret  from  everybody  in  the  world  full 

of  people 

But  I  cannot  always  remember  how  it  goes ; 
It  is  a  song 
For  you,  Mother, 

With  a  curl  of  cloud  and  a  feather  of  blue 
And  a  mist 

Blowing  along  the  sky. 
If  I  sing  it  some  day,  under  my  voicej 
Will  it  make  you  happy? 

Hilda  Conkling  lives  in  Emily  Dickin- 
son's country  and  one  recognizes  the 
flowers  and  grass,  the  birds  and  butterflies, 
the  trees,  the  sky  and  something  of  the 
star  shine.  Hilda  has  just  passed  her 
ninth  birthday  and  ever  since  she  was  a 


A  SPRING  REVIEW         159 

very  little  girl  she  has  "told"  her  songs 
and  verses  to  her  mother,  who  wrote  them 
down  without  Hilda's  knowledge.  Those 
who  have  had  intimate  and  continuous 
knowledge  of  children  in  whom  the  poetic 
instinct  and  feeling  for  language  were 
strong  between  the  ages  of  four  and  six, 
will  feel  the  universality  of  these  earlier 
verses : 

There's  dozens  full  of  dandelions 

Down  in  the  field. 

Little  gold  plates, 

Little  gold  dishes  in  the  grass, 

I  cannot  count  them 

But  the  fairies  know  every  one. 

Sparkle  up,  little  tired  flower 
Leaning  in  the  grass ! 
Did  you  find  the  rain  of  night 
Too  heavy  to  hold? 

There  is  going  to  be  the  sound  of  bells 

and  murmuring. 
This  is  the  brook  dance  ; 
There  is  going  to  be  sound  of  voices, 
And  the  smallest  will  be  the  brook; 
It  is  the  song  of  water 
You  will  hear. 


160    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Fairies  and  the  Sandman  appear  and 
reappear  in  earlier  and  later  verses.  The 
play  spirit  of  music,  art,  and  literature 
finds  its  way  out-of-doors.  There  is  a 
lovely  dream  of  fairies  on  the  mountain 
tops,  reminiscent  of  Allingham's  Fairies. 
"I  went  to  sea  in  a  glass-bottomed  boat" 
is  so  perfect  a  description  as  to  make  one 
wonder  it  is  composed  from  a  dream  or  out 
of  a  real  experience.  Was  ever  geography 
made  so  fascinating"? 

GEOGRAPHY 

I  can  tell  balsam  trees 

By  their  grayish  bluish  silverish  look  of  smoke. 
Pine  trees  fringe  out. 
Hemlocks  look  like  Christmas. 
The  spruce  tree  is  feathered  and  rough 
Like  the  legs  of  the  red  chickens  in  our  poul- 
try yard. 

I  can  study  my  geography  from  chickens 
Named  for  Plymouth  Rock  and  Rhode  Island, 
And  from  trees  out  of  Canada. 
No;  I  shall  leave  the  chickens  out. 
I  shall  make  a  new  geography  of  my  own. 
I  shall  have  a  hillside  of  spruce  and  hemlock 
Like  a  separate  country, 

And  I  shall  mark  a  walk  of  spires  on  my  map, 
A  secret  road  of  balsam  trees 


A  SPRING  REVIEW         161 

With  blue  buds. 

Trees  that  smell  like  a  wind  out  of  fairy-land 

Where  little  people  live 

Who  need  no  geography 

But  trees. 

In  her  informing  and  appreciative  in- 
troduction to  "Poems  by  a  Little  Girl," 
Amy  Lowell  has  paid  warm  tribute  to 
"the  stuff  and  essence  of  poetry  that  this 
book  contains,"  to  Hilda  Conkling's 
power  of  observation  and  gift  of  imagina- 
tion, and  to  the  tact  and  understanding  of 
her  mother.  She  admits  Hilda  goes  to 
school,  but  warns  instructors  to  keep 
"hands  off"  and  gives  thanks  that  Hilda 
has  never  been  "for  hours  at  a  time  in  con- 
tact with  an  elementary  intelligence." 

We  read  the  introduction  after  we  had 
read  the  poems  because  we  wanted  to 
know  what  we  thought  about  the  book 
and  its  author  from  quite  a  different  stand- 
point. We  have  been  haunted  ever  since 
by  persistent  memories  in  word  or  phrase 
of  the  children  of  an  East  Side  public 
school  in  New  York  City,  a  school  as 
rarely  fortunate  in  its  principal  whose  love 


162    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

of  beautiful  English  and  good  music  has 
pervaded  it  for  many  years,  as  Hilda 
Conkling  in  her  remarkable  mother.  These 
poems  belong  by  every  natural  right  to 
such  children  and  to  all  children,  but  we 
would  like  to  pass  on  the  book  without  the 
portrait  of  Hilda  Conkling  which  appears 
as  a  frontispiece  and  without  other  intro- 
duction than  a  simple  foreword  written 
by  Hilda's  mother.  Such  treatment,  in 
our  judgment,  would  go  far  toward 
answering  some  of  the  questions  Miss 
Lowell  has  raised  concerning  authorship 
in  childhood,  and  creating  a  more  under- 
standing conception  of  the  difference  be- 
tween teaching  and  educating  children  in 
any  environment. 

Miss  Lowell  has  well  said  that  Hilda 
Conkling  is  "subconscious"  rather  than 
"self-conscious."  We  think  the  chances 
are  good  that  she  will  remain  so  if  the  in- 
centive to  good  work  is  held  steadily  be- 
hind the  poetic  endowment  in  her  own 
experience  and  in  that  of  her  lessN  gifted 
contemporaries,  who  will  be  the  true  ap- 
praisers of  her  work  in  years  to  come. 


A  SPRING  REVIEW         163 

While  we  were  still  lingering  so  delight- 
edly over  "Poems  by  a  Little  Girl"  as  not 
to  care  who  wrote  them  or  why,  we  re- 
ceived proofs  of  an  enlarged  American  edi- 
tion of  Marie  L.  Shedlock's  "Eastern 
Stories  and  Legends"  and  read  with  a  new 
sense  of  its  meaning  the  beautiful  story 
of  the  Banyan  Deer. 

In  rearranging  and  expanding  this  selec- 
tion of  stories  from  the  Buddha  Rebirths, 
Miss  Shedlock  has  wisely  freed  the  book 
from  limitations,  which  in  the  earlier  edi- 
tion gave  it  too  much  the  appearance  of  a 
text-book  to  look  readable.  In  so  doing 
she  has  preserved  the  classical  rendering 
and  the  eastern  point  of  view  of  one  of  the 
foremost  of  Oriental  scholars — Rhys 
Davids — who  wrote  the  foreword  to  the 
collection  and  assisted  her  personally  in 
getting  the  atmosphere  of  the  stories. 

The  notes  for  teachers,  which  now  ap- 
pear at  the  back  of  the  book,  are  charged 
with  the  same  wisdom,  clarity  of  expres- 
sion, and  recognition  of  the  power  of  a 
dramatic  rather  than  a  didactic  presenta- 
tion, which  characterize  Miss  Shedlock's 


164'    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

treatment  of  story-telling  in  "The  Art  of 
the  Story-teller" — a  book  that  May  Sin- 
clair says  should  be  on  the  desk  of  every 
writer  of  stories.  It  is,  we  consider,  the 
best  book  on  the  subject  of  story-telling 
and  contains  a  fine  selection  of  stories  from 
authoritative  sources.  Miss  Shedlock  first 
became  known  in  America  through  her 
dramatic  interpretation  of  the  stories  of 
Hans  Christian  Andersen,  some  twenty 
years  ago.  Since  then,  she  has  become 
more  familiarly  known  in  her  own  coun- 
try, the  United  States,  and  Canada,  as 
"The  Fairy  Godmother."  She  has  re- 
cently returned  to  England  after  five  years 
of  story-telling  in  this  country  and  in  Can- 
ada; and  the  revision  and  enlargement  of 
the  "Eastern  Stories  and  Legends"  grew 
out  of  her  experiences  of  telling  "The  Tree 
Spirit,"  "The  True  Spirit  of  a  Festival 
Day,"  "The  Earth  is  Falling  In"  and 
other  stories  from  the  collection,  to  audi- 
ences of  children  and  grown  people. 

We  know  of  no  book  we  can  so  con- 
fidently recommend  to  persons  who  insist 
upon  stories  with  an  ethical  significance. 


A  SPRING  REVIEW         165 

"These  stories  of  the  'Buddha  Rebirths,'  " 
says  the  editor,  "are  not  for  one  age  or  one 
country,  but  for  all  time,  and  for  the 
whole  world.  Their  philosophy  might  be 
incorporated  into  the  tenets  of  faith  of  a 
League  of  Nations  without  destroying  any 
national  forms  of  religious  teaching."  In 
its  new  and  more  attractive  form  the  book 
should  appeal  to  a  wide  circle  of  readers, 
including  boys  and  girls  in  their  teens. 

From  England  there  has  recently  come 
as  a  gift  from  Ethel  Sidgwick  to  the  Chil- 
dren's Room  of  the  New  York  Public 
Library,  an  "Ancient  Mappe  of  Fairy- 
land," newly  discovered  and  set  forth  by 
Bernard  Sleigh. 

This  unique  map  is  in  color,  measuring 
five  feet  or  more  in  length  by  about  twenty 
inches.  Children  and  grown  people  are 
completely  fascinated  by  it.  "Isn*t  it 
great*?"  exclaimed  a  boy  of  twelve. 
"There's  Rockabye  Baby  square  on  the 
treetop,  The  Three  Blind  Mice,  Humpty 
Dumpty  sitting  on  that  long  wall,  and 
down  here  are  King  Arthur's  Knights,  the 
Sea  King's  Palace,  Dreamland  Harbour, 


166    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

and  the  Argonauts.  There's  the  Rainbow 
Bridge,  Hansel  and  Gretel — everything 
and  everybody  you  ever  read  about  in 
Mother  Goose,  Fairy  Tales,  or  Myth- 
ology." 

We  are  showing  this  map  on  a  long 
table  covered  with  glass.  It  might,  of 
course,  be  shown  on  the  wall,  although 
not  quite  so  effectively.  A  map  of  Fairy- 
land should  prove  of  great  interest  to 
schools  as  well  as  to  libraries. 

With  an  advance  set  of  the  beautiful 
color  plates  from  Italian  Primitives,  illus- 
trating Mrs.  Richard  Henry  Dana's  "The 
Story  of  Jesus"  comes  assurance  that  this 
book,  which  is  to  be  sold  by  subscription, 
will  be  available  in  April.  The  Ameri- 
can edition  of  Boutet  de  Monvel's  "Joan 
of  Arc"  has  not  yet  appeared,  and  no 
date  is  now  stated  by  its  publishers. 

Dorothy  Canfield's  "History  of  France 
for  Young  Folks"  is  again  postponed. 
"Hero  Stories  of  France"  by  Eva  March 
Tappan  is  announced  as  a  spring  publica- 
tion, and  although  we  have  not  seen  the 
text,  we  are  confident  that  Miss  Tappan 


A  SPRING  REVIEW         167 

has  made  a  contribution  to  our  limited 
resources  in  the  history  of  France. 

Histories  of  the  Pilgrims  are  making 
their  way  from  the  presses  of  more  than 
one  publisher,  but  we  have  not  read  any 
of  them.  We  hope  to  find  one  of  more 
lively  interest  to  children  than  Roland 
Usher's  of  last  year. 

We  may  as  well  make  open  confession 
that  from  this  point  on  we  have  read  none 
of  the  books  we  mention  or  fail  to  men- 
tion, since  we  had  no  opportunity  to  see 
them,  even  in  galleys.  De  Wolfe  Howe, 
on  a  recent  visit,  described  very  graphically 
"A  Little  Gateway  to  Science"  by  Edith 
M.  Patch,  who  is,  he  says,  "a  trained  en- 
tomologist endowed  with  a  charming  gift 
of  writing  for  children."  The  twelve 
sketches  of  six-footed  insects  which  make 
up  this  book  are  illustrated  by  Robert  T. 
Sim.  "Americans  by  Adoption,"  is  a  vol- 
ume of  biographical  sketches  of  eminent 
Americans  by  Joseph  Husband.  The  lat- 
ter book  for  "more  mature  readers,  but 
still  young,  is  designed  especially  for  use 
in  connection  with  the  Americanization 


i68    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

work  now  going  on  throughout  the  coun- 
try." 

James  Willard  Schultz  has  entered  the 
field  of  Boy  Scout  stories  with  "In  the 
Great  Apache  Forest."  The  book  is  an- 
nounced as  an  Indian  story,  a  Boy  Scout 
story,  a  Forest  Service  story  and  a  war 
story  of  to-day — all  in  one.  We  shall 
be  interested  to  see  how  Mr.  Schultz  meets 
the  demands  of  the  situation.  William 
Heyliger's  "Don  Strong  American"  is  the 
third  and  final  volume  in  the  series  to 
which  it  belongs. 

Edmund  L.  Pearson  has  written  a  "Life 
of  Roosevelt"  for  "The  True  Stories  of 
Great  Americans  Series." 

Thornton  Burgess  called  one  day  on  his 
way  to  the  Philadelphia  Book  Fair  and 
gave  an  interesting  forecast  of  his  book 
about  animals,  which  is  to  appear  in  the 
autumn,  as  a  companion  volume  to  "The 
Burgess  Bird  Book."  The  illustrations  are 
to  be  made  by  Louis  Agassiz  Fuertes,  and 
the  book  promises  to  fill  an  every  day  need 
not  supplied  to  this  generation  by  "Wood's 
Natural  History."  Mr.  Burgess  reminded 


A  SPRING  REVIEW         169 

us  that  as  none  of  his  animals  ever  come 
to  a  tragic  end  and  his  stories  are  written 
without  effort  or  boredom  on  his  part,  we 
may  expect  them  to  flow  on  and  on.  "Bow- 
ser, the  Hound"  is  the  title  of  a  volume 
announced  for  publication  this  spring. 

"Why  announce  a  spring  review  of  chil- 
dren's books  when  children's  books  are 
published  in  the  fall — too  late  very  often 
for  review  before  Christmas'?"  A  critical 
reader  of  the  circular  announcing  the  new 
Juvenile  Department  of  The  Bookman 
asked  this  question  last  July.  To  which 
we  then  replied  that  we  liked  the  sight 
and  the  sound  and  the  idea  of  a  spring  re- 
view of  children's  books.  Moreover,  we 
had  been  pursued  for  years  by  constant 
and  persistent  inquiries  for  new  books  for 
children  at  Easter  and  just  before  the  sum- 
mer holidays.  We  had  never  seen  such  a 
spring  review  as  we  then  pictured  writing, 
but  we  thought  it  worth  trying,  at  least 
once — just  for  the  fun  of  the  thing.  Are 
we  down-hearted?"  Not  in  the  least,  al- 
though our  telephone  has  responded  like  a 
Ouija  board  to  "traditions  of  the  trade.'* 


170    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Why,  we  have  asked,  should  we  go  on 
treating  children's  books  like  Christmas 
toys?  Why  shouldn't  more  of  them  be 
published  in  the  spring  and  accorded  more 
individual  consideration  as  books,  then, 
and  at  other  seasons  of  the  year?  We  are 
not  in  the  least  convinced  by  any  of  the 
reasons  given  for  sustaining  the  present 
system.  It  holds  too  many  limitations  for 
authors,  artists,  readers,  librarians,  book- 
sellers, and  publishers  who  are  interested  in 
a  larger  distribution  and  a  freer,  more  in- 
telligent use  of  children's  books  in  our  own 
country  and  in  other  countries. 

That  the  holiday  trade  will  continue  to 
hold  its  place  as  a  big  factor  in  the  pro- 
duction of  books  for  children  in  this  coun- 
try and  in  England,  we  have  no  doubt. 
That  it  should  continue  to  dominate  and 
restrict  the  field  of  writing,  illustrating, 
and  distribution  of  books,  for  children  and 
young  people  in  the  twentieth  century,  is 
inconceivable  in  the  face  of  new  condi- 
tions and  relationships  with  other  countries 
and  a  larger  understanding  of  our  own 
needs  and  the  power  of  books — real  books 


A  SPRING  REVIEW         171 

— to  interpret  and  satisfy  them.  The  ex- 
pression of  our  interest  in  foreign  affairs 
and  in  economics  and  industrial  problems 
has  been  too  exclusively  the  concern  of 
text-books,  with  all  the  limitations  im- 
posed upon  the  text-book  from  time  im- 
memorial. The  bulk  of  publications  for 
the  use  of  children  and  young  people  in 
the  late  winter  and  early  spring  takes  the 
form  of  text-books.  The  reason  for  this  is 
obvious,  but  there  is  a  larger  interest  at 
stake  and  we  would  urge  its  claim — the  in- 
culcation of  a  love  of  reading  for  its  own 
sake  by  exposure  to  books  at  all  times  and 
seasons. 

A  few  weeks  ago  we  were  asked  by  the 
American  Ambassador  to  Brazil  to  select 
five  or  six  hundred  books  to  be  used  as  the 
nucleus  of  a  library  in  a  school  in  Rio  de 
Janeiro.  The  school  was  already  supplied 
with  text-books;  the  children  attending  it 
were  of  American  and  English  parentage. 
Real  books  were  wanted,  with  an  emphasis 
on  the  pictorial  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word.  The  books  chosen  must  range  in 
their  appeal  from  a  liberal  supply  of  pic- 


172    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

ture  books  for  the  little  children,  to  such 
books  as  Captain  Scott's  "Last  Expedi- 
tion" and  Hudson  Stuck's  "Ten  Thousand 
Miles  with  a  Dog  Sled"  for  boys  of  fifteen. 
Many  of  the  books  we  wanted  to 
recommend  were  out  of  print.  For  many 
countries  and  characters  there  is  no  illumi- 
nating literature  in  print  for  children  and 
young  people.  Whenever  we  are  asked  to 
evaluate  a  selection  of  children's  books  to 
be  sent  out  of  the  country,  we  realize 
afresh  how  little  we  have  to  offer  in  travel, 
history,  and  biography;  how  deadly  dull 
many  of  these  books  are  and  how  great 
is  the  need  of  the  children  of  our  own 
land  for  just  such  books  as  we  are  trying 
to  find  for  children  in  South  America,  Nor- 
way, Sweden,  France,  or  Belgium.  These 
countries,  and  still  more  distant  ones,  are 
asking  some  very  important  questions  when 
their  educators  and  ambassadors  take  time 
to  concern  themselves  with  the  selection  of 
books  for  children.  They  ask  for  books  to 
"enlarge  the  understanding,  deepen  the 
sympathies  and  with  a  strong  appeal  to 
the  imagination  of  children."  Such  ques- 


A  SPRING  REVIEW         173 

tions  cannot  be  answered  by  holiday  an- 
nouncements nor  by  primers  of  informa- 
tion. It  is  going  to  take  a  long  time  to 
answer  them  wisely  and  well.  Hope  lies 
in  the  multiplication  of  such  responses 
as  this  which  has  just  reached  us  from  a 
well-known  publishing  house:  "You 
may  certainly  count  upon  our  interest  and 
cooperation  in  bringing  out  books  of  value 
to  children  of  all  countries." 


CHAPTER  NINE 

BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE 

Time,  you  old  gipsy  man, 
Witt  you  not  stay, 
Put  up  your  caravan 
Just  for  one  day? 

RALPH  HODGSON. 


one  writes  a  novel  about 
grown  people  he  knows  exactly 
where  to  stop;  but  when  he  writes  of  ju- 
veniles he  must  stop  where  best  he  can." 
So  wrote  Mark  Twain  in  his  conclusion  to 
"The  Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer"  in  the 
year  1876. 

Forty-four  years  have  brought  many 
changes  to  the  novel  about  grown  people. 
Authors  are  no  longer  as  sure  of  where  to 
stop  or  where  to  begin.  The  middle-aged 
heroine1  has  come  into  her  own.  The  hero 
has  too  often  seen  his  best  days.  Tech- 
nique has  driven  many  a  hard  bargain 
174 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE    175 

with  imagination.  With  a  few  notable 
exceptions  novels  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury are  being  written  for  a  sophisticated 
middle-aged  audience. 

"Is  'Jeremy'  a  book  we  can  discuss  at 
a  club  meeting?"  (The  club,  we  learn, 
is  composed  of  more  or  less  intellectual 
women  whose  children  are  grown  up  or 
non-existent.)  "We  have  just  discussed 
Galsworthy's  'Saint's  Progress',  but  a  child 
character  would  be  too  simple  for  discus- 
sion, wouldn't  it*?  There  would  be  no 
problems.  'Jeremy'  remains  a  child, 
doesn't  he?  We  are  tired  of  discussing 
Wells.  We  had  thought  about  'Mary 
Olivier' — she  does  grow  up,  I  know;  but 
we  hesitate  over  May  Sinclair.  So  you 
really  think  Booth  Tarkington's  books 
about  boys  are  to  be  taken  seriously1?  I 
can't  imagine  boys  reading  them.  Girls 
too.  Why 'Seventeen' especially?  I  have 
always  thought  of  them  as  written  merely 
for  the  entertainment  of  grown  people. 
Has  he  written  anything  we  could  dis- 
cuss or  is  everything  from  too  youthful 
and  romantic  a  standpoint? 


176    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

"I  have  always  supposed  it  much  easier 
to  write  for  boys  and  girls  in  their  'teens 
than  for  grown  people  or  children — after 
the  author  got  used  to  it.  You  think  it 
isn't.  Yes,  I  know  boys  and  girls  of  fifteen 
and  sixteen  are  very  critical,  but  they  are 
so  capricious  and  they  have  no  sound  judg- 
ment of  books.  How  can  they  with  no 
experience  of  life? 

"You  think  a  vision  of  life  and  a  pas- 
sion for  reading  may  carry  them  a  long 
way"?  Who  knows*?  Well,  if  you  can't 
think  of  a  recent  book  for  our  club  discus- 
sion, won't  you  suggest  a  subject1?  'Back 
to  Youth  with  the  Novel"?  Why,  yes, 
I  believe  that  would  be  different  from 
anything  we've  ever  taken  up  and  it  might 
remind  us  of  books  we've  forgotten.  How 
far  back*?  Would  you  begin  with  Defoe 
or  Sir  Walter  Scott*?  With  Mark  Twain, 
really?  I  never  think  of  Mark  Twain  as 
a  novelist — just  a  humorist.  So  'Tom 
Sawyer'  and  'Huckleberry  Finn'  are  really 
histories  of  boy  life  in  the  eighteen-forties. 
Aldrich's  'Tom  Bailey'  always  seemed  to 
me  so  much  safer  for  a  boy  to  read.  Not 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE    177 

very  popular  with  the  boys  of  to-day? 
Why  not,  I  wonder?  After  all  you've 
said,  I  really  think  we  should  give  serious 
consideration  to  Tenrod'  and  'Seventeen/ 

"I  don't  know  the  girls'  books  so  well. 
I  can  think  of  only  two  girl  characters, 
Jo  March  in  'Little  Women'  and  'Rebecca 
of  Sunnybrook  Farm.'  But  I'm  afraid  the 
club  would  seriously  object  to  Miss  Al- 
cott's  English.  I  am  really  surprised  you 
don't  object  to  it.  I  had  supposed  li- 
brarians were  more  particular  about  Eng- 
lish than  anything  else.  To  be  sure  I 
never  thought  about  it  when  I  was  read- 
ing 'Little  Women,'  but  the  question  has 
been  raised  by  so  many  literary  critics. 
Miss  Alcott  is  dramatic  and  human,  of 
course.  Russian  girls  read  her  books? 
How  singular? 

"Why  doesn't  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin 
write  another  book  for  girls?  She  is  so 
clever  and  original  and  has  all  the  back- 
ground from  which  to  write  for  the  girl  of 
to-day. 

"I'm  surprised  that  you  can  suggest  no 
other  girl  characters  unless,  as  you  say, 


178    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

we  go  back  to  Jane  Eyre  or  Maggie  Tul- 
liver. 

"Has  there  really  never  been  a  fine  story 
of  school  life  for  girls  in  England  or 
America — a  story  corresponding  to  'Tom 
Brown's  School  Days"?  I  hadn't  realized 
the  significance  of  the  lack  of  it.  Even  a 
book  like  'Joan  an4  Peter'  can  hardly  make 
up  for  it.  Will  you  promise  to  come  to 
the  final  meeting  and  tell  us  what  books — 
especially  novels — from  'Robinson  Crusoe' 
to  'Jeremy'  are  popular  with  boys  and 
girls  in  their  'teens?" 

I  promised.  For  next  to  the  children 
under  ten  years  old  who  are  forming  their 
first  intimate  associations  with  books,  I 
have  always  felt  nearest  to  these  older  boys 
and  girls  who  are  unconsciously  seeking  in 
romance,  in  mystery,  in  poetry,  in  his- 
tory, in  philosophy,  and  in  reality  substi- 
tutes for  the  fairy  and  folk  tales  the 
legends,  myths,  and  hero  tales,  the  wild 
adventure,  and  the  true  or  fictitious  nar- 
ratives belonging  to  early  childhood. 

I  am  inclined  to  place  less  stress  on  the 
choice  of  books  made  by  boys  and  girls 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE    179 

between  the  ages  of  ten  and  fourteen  if 
they  have  been  naturally  and  continuously 
exposed  to  a  liberal  selection  of  good  lit- 
erature in  their  earlier  years.  Between 
the  ages  of  eleven  and  thirteen  there  fre- 
quently occurs  a  reading  craze  which  is  the 
despair  of  many  parents  and  teachers  and 
full  of  opportunity  for  the  librarian.  It  is 
a  time  of  ranging  over  a  great  variety  of 
subjects  to  see  what  they  are  like — pirates, 
smugglers,  Indians,  treasure-seekers,  boys 
of  unfailing  courage  and  resource,  girls  in 
strange  cities,  girls  at  boarding-school,  girls 
at  home,  are  all  on  the  near  horizon.  So, 
too,  are,  or  may  be,  some  of  the  great  char- 
acters in  fiction  and  in  real  life. 

I  shall  have  more  to  say  of  these  "mid- 
dle-aged children"  and  their  multitudinous 
interests  in  reading  in  a  future  article. 
They  were  the  dominant  element  in  the 
children's  libraries  of  the  iSpo's  and  early 
IQOO'S.  It  is  largely  on  certain  of  their 
known  tastes  and  preferences  and  on  a 
tradition  of  what  has  been  considered  suit- 
able for  "youth"  handed  down  from  the 
old  moral  tales  and  the  Sunday  School 


i8o    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

libraries  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  that  the  present  schemes  for  ju- 
venile publications,  designed  to  cover  the 
period  from  eight  to  eighteen  years  old, 
have  been  based. 

These  schemes  betray  their  origin.  They 
are  built  around  the  series  idea  with  all  its 
limitations  for  author,  publisher,  and 
reader.  I  shall  not  now  discuss  the  series 
in  relation  to  boys  and  girls  under  four- 
teen years  of  age.  I  do  not  fully  share  the 
prejudice  against  it  that  is  sometimes  ex- 
pressed, provided  the  work  is  well  sus- 
tained. But  it  is  an  affront  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  young  people  from  fourteen  to 
eighteen  to  allow  the  series  idea  to  be  the 
determining  factor  in  the  production  of  a 
literature  designed  for  their  reading.  It 
is  inevitable  that  it  should  result  in  just 
such  a  state  of  arrested  development  as  we 
find  to-day.  It  has  been  said  that  child- 
hood and  poverty  emerged  at  the  same  time 
to  claim  their  naturalization  papers — in 
poetry  at  the  hands  of  Wordsworth,  in 
prose  in  the  novels  of  Dickens. 

The  discovery  of  adolescence  has  not  yet 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE    181 

been  declared  in  corresponding  terms,  but 
all  clearly  recollected  experience  concern- 
ing it  indicates  that  it  is  a  period  of  greater 
expansion,  of  livelier  interests,  of  deeper 
emotions,  of  greater  sensitiveness,  of 
stronger  appreciations  and  of  keener  crit- 
ical perceptions  than  any  other  period  of 
life.  Thomas  Hughes,  Louisa  Alcott, 
Mark  Twain,  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin, 
Booth  Tarkington,  Rudyard  Kipling,  E. 
F.  Benson  and  May  Sinclair  have  given 
varied  and  eloquent  testimony  concerning 
life  at  this  period.  Since  the  Brontes  there 
has  been  no  such  unveiling  of  the  inner  life 
of  a  girl  and  woman  as  in  "Mary  Olivier." 
Writers  of  girl's  books  and  mothers  of  girls 
who  are  still  growing  up  may  well  look  to 
it  for  the  clarification  of  many  hazy  views 
respecting  the  character  of  girls  and 
women.  Mrs.  Gaskell's  "Life  of  Char- 
lotte Bronte"  is  one  of  the  books  May  Sin- 
clair read  as  a  child  with  much  skipping, 
she  says.  That  "Mary  Olivier"  was  not 
written  for  children  nor  for  girls  in  their 
'teens  we  may  feel  confident.  I  think  it 
would  have  interest  only  for  a  very  un- 


182    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

usual  young  girl,  such  as  May  Sinclair 
herself  must  have  been,  but  I  also  think  it 
may  come  to  be  considered  one  of  the 
strongest  forces  for  the  liberation  of  truer 
girl  characters  in  fiction  for  young  people ; 
it  bears  so  clear  a  stamp  that  what  a  girl 
really  is — not  what  she  is  made  to  seem 
to  be — determines  her  destiny,  whatever 
her  inheritance  or  environment. 

There  have  been  very  few  liberated  char- 
acters in  fiction  for  young  people  in  the 
forty  odd  years  since  the  publication  of 
"Tom  Sawyer."  Authors  have  stopped 
where  they  have  been  quite  plainly  told 
to  stop  rather  than  "where  best  they  can." 
There  has  been  too  much  tinkering  of 
stories  in  offices.  Old  properties  have  been 
revamped  by  somebody  who  remembers 
what  he  liked  at  the  age  of  twelve  and 
"how  mature"  he,  or  his  brother,  was; 
and  who  decides  the  skeleton  can  be  set 
up  in  a  series  designed  for  boys  of  four- 
teen to  eighteen  if  the  plot  is  up  to  date 
and  scientific,  or  if  mechanical  information 
is  accurate  and  abundant. 

The  school  athletic  story,  whose  most 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE   183 

successful  exponent  is  Ralph  Henry  Bar- 
hour,  was  a  new  type  of  story  with  con- 
siderable promise.  It  was  overdone  and 
lost  its  first  distinction  and  originality  of 
theme.  Mr.  Barbour's  earlier  stories,  such 
as  "The  Half-Back"  and  "The  Crimson 
Sweater,"  are  the  popular  ones  to-day.  His 
versatility  has  led  him  into  the  field  of 
the  adventure  story.  It  is  perhaps  too  soon 
to  predict  the  degree  of  success.  It  would 
be  possible  to  mention  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  competent  writers  who  have  either 
become  martyrs  to  the  series  idea  or  have 
turned  completely  away  from  the  juve- 
nile field. 

Books  dealing  with  historical  periods, 
if  the  material  is  ample,  and  the  author 
capable  of  making  dramatic  use  of  it,  suf- 
fer less  from  the  projection  into  a  series 
than  do  characters  supposed  to  be  living 
their  own  lives.  This  is  notably  true  of 
the  work  of  Joseph  Altsheler.  Mr.  Alt- 
sheler  wrote  out  of  interest  in  his  subject, 
never  with  a  definite  age  in  mind.  His 
books  are  read  by  many  men  as  well  as  by 
boys  of  different  ages. 


184    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Kirk  Munro's  best  work  was  in  his  in- 
dividual books  rather  than  in  his  series. 

The  absurdity  of  expecting  an  author 
or  a  group  of  authors  to  produce  six,  or 
eight,  or  a  dozen  books  of  a  denned  spe- 
cies for  the  reading  of  young  people  be- 
tween the  ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen, 
has  long  been  apparent  to  the  young  peo- 
ple themselves.  The  series  interest  is  at 
i£s  height  between  eleven  and  thirteen,  and 
by  fourteen  or  fifteen  has  been  replaced 
by  a  very  persistent  desire  for  romance, 
detective  stones,  historical  novels,  stories 
of  the  sea,  authentic  books  of  exploration 
and  discovery,  etc.,  so  written  as  to  ab- 
sorb the  reader. 

This  desire  has  been  met  in  the  chil- 
dren's libraries  with  which  I  have  been 
connected  for  many  years  by  a  liberal  se- 
lection of  novels  written  for  adults — 
placed  upon  the  shelves  of  the  children's 
rooms.  I  have  always  believed  in  edu- 
cating such  parents  as  may  be  unthinking, 
or  even  unwilling,  to  allow  their  daugh- 
ters to  take  their  first  impressions  of  love 
from  novels  which  seem  to  follow  nat- 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE    185 

urally  the  old  fairy  tales,  the  medieval 
legends  and  the  classical  tales.  Fortunate 
the  girl  who  passes,  in  her  own  good  time, 
from  "The  Sleeping  Beauty"  to  the  stories 
of  Atalanta,  Brunhilde,  Guinevere,  and 
"Aucassin  and  Nicolette" ;  and  from  these 
to  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  "The  Mill  on  the 
Floss,"  "Pride  and  Prejudice,"  or  "Cran- 
ford" — as  Anne  Thackeray  conceived  of 
it,  "a  kind  of  visionary  country  home"; 
"The  Brushwood  Boy,"  "Monsieur  Beau- 
caire,"  and  her  own  free  choice  of  Scott, 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  other  authors. 

The  made-to-order  series  with  its  girl 
bride  and  its  up-to-date  boy  hero  seems 
very  insipid  after  any  such  vision  and  fore- 
shadowing of  what  love  is  going  to  be. 

What  is  true  of  the  love  story  is  true 
also  of  the  mystery,  the  detective  story, 
and  the  tale  of  pure  adventure  for  both 
boys  and  girls.  When  the  interest  is 
strongest  they  should  be  able  to  put  their 
hands  on  the  books  written  by  masters  of 
the  art.  Poe  is  better  known  since  the 
boys  discovered  Conan  Doyle's  tribute  to 
him  as  master  of  the  mystery  story.  Wilkie 


186    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Collins,  Quiller-Couch,  Stevenson's  "New 
Arabian  Nights,"  "Island  Nights  Enter- 
tainments," and  "Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde"  are  all  much  read.  Dumas  is 
without  doubt  the  most  popular  of  the 
novelists  read  by  the  older  boys. 

No  one  who  has  watched  two  genera- 
tions pass  into  their  'teens  and  has  held 
any  large  and  continuous  observation  of 
life  at  earlier  and  later  periods,  feels  like 
minimizing  the  value  of  impressions  which 
may  then  be  taken  from  books.  But  it  is 
a  time,  not  for  prohibitions  and  restric- 
tions hedged  about  with  sentimentality 
and  cheap  optimism;  it  is  a  time  for  throw- 
ing wide  the  gates  if  any  have  been  set 
up.  Literature — great  literature — can  be 
trusted  to  do  its  own  work,  and  one  who 
hopes  for  large  returns  should  make  no 
unsought  recommendations.  Too  many 
books  have  been  killed  for  young  readers 
by  over-zealous  recommendation. 

It  is  plain  that  neither  an  age  limit  nor 
a  series  limit  will  ever  command  the  serv- 
ice of  writers  who  have  the  imagination, 
the  wisdom,  the  sincerity,  the  charm,  and 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE    187 

the  distinction  of  style  which  are  essen- 
tial qualifications  of  the  successful  writer 
of  books  for  young  people.  One,  if  not 
both,  of  two  things  is  sure  to  happen. 
The  novel  will  recover  its  sense  of  youth, 
— it  is  written  in  the  history  of  the  novel 
that  it  must, — or  the  writer  for  young  peo- 
ple must  enlarge  the  boundaries  by  escap- 
ing from  the  series  and  the  age  limit  when 
entering  the  competition  to  write  the 
"real  thing"  for  the  'teens.  In  "High 
Benton,"  William  Heyliger  has  taken  a 
long  step  forward  in  this  direction.  There 
may  be  a  sequel  to  "High  Benton"  but 
the  book  is  clearly  not  one  of  a  series.  It 
bears  all  the  marks  of  sincerity  and  inti- 
mate continuous  knowledge  of  boy  nature. 
Moreover,  it  is  a  school  story  of  a  new 
type  dealing  with  the  everyday  life  of  a 
boy  at  High  School  who  is  tempted  to 
leave  school  and  go  to  work  before  finish- 
ing his  course.  Never  has  the  village 
loafer,  full  of  superstition  and  unbelief  in 
education,  been  better  drawn  than  in  the 
character  of  old  Todd,  the  jitney  man,  in 
his  relation  to  a  group  of  boys.  One  feels 


i88    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

an  integrity  of  background  in  the  book. 
The  author  knows  the  environment  he  has 
re-created  and  deals  with  actual  problems 
of  boy  life  with  uncommon  freedom 
and  naturalness.  Mr.  Heyliger's  earlier 
books,  school  stories  and  scout  stories,  have 
been  very  popular  with  boys  and  are  char- 
acterized by  their  emphatic  presentation 
of  "fair  play.'*  From  a  second  reading 
of  "High  Benton"  I  went  back  to  "Tom 
Brown's  School  Days" — beginning  where 
so  many  boys  do,  with  chapter  five,  and 
reading  the  first  chapters  after  I  had  fin- 
ished the  story.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
picture  a  sharper  contrast  than  is  pre- 
sented by  the  life  of  an  English  boy  at 
Rugby  in  the  1830*5  and  an  American 
boy  in  a  New  Jersey  public  school  in 
1919,  but  I  think  I  have  never  read  "Tom 
Brown"  with  so  strong  a  sense  of  his  kin- 
ship to  the  boy  life  of  all  time.  "Tom 
Brown's  School  Days"  often  requires  in- 
troduction and  a  judicious  amount  of  skip- 
ping, but  I  have  never  known  a  boy  who 
really  read  it  not  to  like  it.  I  often  read 
it  in  conjunction  with  "Huckleberry  Finn" 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE    189 

— another  sharp  contrast  provocative  of 
many  questions  concerning  the  nature  of 
boys  who  lived  in  the  same  era,  for  Mark 
Twain  places  Huck  on  the  Mississippi  at 
about  the  same  period  that  Thomas 
Hughes  entered  Rugby. 

From  "Tom  Brown"  I  came  back  to 
"David  Blaize"  and  what  a  fascinating, 
moving  story  of  English  school  life  it  is, 
carrying  David  from  the  age  of  eleven  to 
seventeen.  The  book  is  perhaps  too  sub- 
jective for  the  American  boy  even  in  his 
later  'teens,  but  it  is  a  revealing  book  to 
all  who  know  much  or  little  about  boys. 
The  chapter  descriptive  of  David  "chang- 
ing his  skin"  under  the  yew  tree  in  the 
garden,  with  his  sister  Margery  standing 
by,  is  I  think  the  best  account  of  boy  and 
girl  adolescence  I  have  ever  read.  The 
mysterious  attics  and  the  gurgling  cistern, 
the  dark  corners  and  the  frightening 
games  belong  to  my  own  childhood  with 
a  brother  whose  imagination  was  very  like 
David's.  The  visit  of  David's  father — 
the  Archdeacon — to  the  school  is  a  per- 
fect bit  out  of  English  family  life.  David 


190    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

at  seventeen,  and  in  love  for  the  first  time, 
is  free  from  the  self -consciousness  of  Wil- 
liam Sylvanus  Baxter  at  seventeen,  but  re- 
member how  differently  he  was  situated. 
I  turned  to  "Seventeen"  to  refresh  my 
own  memory  and  also  to  contrast  the  story 
of  Willie  Baxter  with  "Betty  Bell." 
"Betty  Bell"  is  very  well  written,  but  the 
incident  is  too  circumscribed  and  the  char- 
acters too  restricted  to  invite  a  second  read- 
ing. "Betty  Bell  is  a  regular  little  flirt, 
and  that's  all  she  does  do,"  commented  a 
girl  of  fifteen  who  read  the  book  recently. 
Rereading  "Seventeen"  in  the  light  of  its 
growing  popularity  with  girls  of  fifteen 
and  sixteen,  I  am  struck  by  its  peculiar 
value  for  girls  of  that  age  and  older.  Life 
is  touched  by  perspective  as  well  as  tinged 
with  humor.  Where  is  there  such  another 
mother  in  a  book  as  Mrs.  Baxter,  yet  how 
well  one  seems  to  know  her!  While 
"Penrod"  is  the  more  popular  book  in  the 
children's  rooms  of  the  libraries, — and 
contrary  to  all  prediction  it  is  very  popu- 
lar,— "Seventeen"  is  being  read  more  and 
more  by  both  boys  and  girls. 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE,  191 

Those  who  have  read  "Master  Simon's 
Garden"  know  that  Cornelia  Meigs  writes 
with  charm  and  knowledge  of  "the  long 
sea  road"  from  New  England  to  China. 
In  "The  Pool  of  Stars"  she  has  told  the 
story  of  a  girl  who  gives  up  a  trip  to  Ber- 
muda with  a  rich  aunt  in  order  to  get 
ready  for  college.  She  spends  an  inter- 
esting summer  and  makes  a  charming 
friendship  with  a  boy  of  her  own  age,  and 
an  older  woman  who  is  the  daughter  of  a 
dreamy  old  inventor.  There  is  a  mys- 
tery and  a  most  successful  story  within  a 
story.  A  chapter  to  which  boys  would 
listen  with  delight  since  it  gives  color  and 
life  to  that  period  of  our  history  follow- 
ing the  war  with  the  Barbary  pirates,  "The 
Tree  of  Jade,"  is  so  well  told  as  to  com- 
pletely reconcile  the  reader  to  the  inter- 
ruption of  the  main  narrative. 

Ruth  Sawyer  ought  to  be  writing  for 
the  girls  who  enjoyed  "The  Primrose 
Ring."  "Doctor  Danny"  is  a  partial  an- 
swer to  this  appeal  since  it  contains  sev- 
eral stories  which  are  very  much  liked  by 


192    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

older  girls,  but  they  will  not  rest  content 
with  short  stories. 

The  final  meeting  of  the  club  at  which 
the  popular  novels  from  "Robinson  Cru- 
soe" to  "Jeremy"  are  to  be  enumerated 
has  not  yet  come  off,  but  I  am  going  to 
anticipate  it  in  so  far  as  to  remind  the 
readers  of  The  Bookman  that  "Robinson 
Crusoe,"  after  two  hundred  years,  is  more 
read  than  ever  it  was.  Older  boys  are 
deeply  impressed  when  told  that  it  is  the 
first  humanized  adventure  story.  Many 
of  them  have  read  it  when  they  were 
younger  as  if  it  were  history  or  biog- 
raphy. 

Between  "Robinson  Crusoe"  and 
"Treasure  Island"  lie  one  hundred  and 
sixty-four  years,  and  the  increasing  popu- 
larity of  "Treasure  Island"  testifies  to 
fresh  delight  in  adventure  for  its  own  sake 
in  a  second  generation  of  boy  readers. 
There  has  been  no  more  striking  growth 
of  the  popularity  of  an  author  not  ac- 
counted a  juvenile  than  is  evidenced  by 
the  circulation  of  Stevenson  from  the  chil- 
dren's rooms  of  the  libraries  during  the 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE    193 

past  twelve  years.  Between  Defoe  and 
Stevenson  stands  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
"Ivanhoe"  is  one  hundred  years  old  this 
very  year,  and  wherever  the  schoolboy 
reads  it  in  advance  of  assignment  he  is 
still  held  captive. 

"I  am,  I  own,"  wrote  Sir  Walter,  "no 
great  believer  in  the  moral  utility  to  be 
derived  from  fictitious  composition." 
When  we  remember  that  he  lived  in  an 
age  of  moralists,  we  may  take  heart  for 
the  writers  of  our  own  time.  It  is  clear 
that  those  who  would  write  for  young  peo- 
ple in  the  I92o's  must  come  to  the  task 
with  more  first-hand  knowledge  of  their 
readers  and  the  books  they  are  actually 
reading;  nor  is  it  far  to  seek.  I  know  of 
no  more  inspiring  or  inspiriting  pageant 
than  that  unconsciously  set  by  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  new  readers  of  fine 
books,  whose  authors  have  passed  on,  but 
whose  work  remains — a  light  to  the  men 
and  women  who  strike  out  new  paths  or 
who  follow  in  old  ways. 


CHAPTER  TEN 

VACATION  READING 

Hark,  the  empty  highways  crying 
"Who'll  beyond  the  hills  away?"' 

A.  E.  HOUSMAN. 

PM  not  going  to  read  a  single  book  all 
summer!"  The  boy  of  sixteen  who 
made  this  announcement  in  the  summer  of 
1917  was  driving  a  spirited  horse  ov^er  one 
of  those  willow-fringed  roads  which  lead 
back  from  the  New  Hampshire  coast 
through  a  lovely  inland  country.  "You 
see,"  he  continued,  after  waiting  in  vain 
for  expostulation  or  comment,  "I've  al- 
ready read  three  books  from  that  old  list 
(a  long  list  furnished  by  one  of  the  large 
preparatory  schools  of  the  country)  and 
I  don't  have  to  read  more  than  three." 

"Don't  you  by  any  chance  want  to  read 
a  book  that  is  not  on  the  list1?"  I  inquired. 
194 


VACATION  READING        195 

"No,  I  don't  think  .of  any.  If  I  should 
come  across  another  book  as  good  as  'Ivan- 
hoe'  I'd  read  it.  I  read  'Ivanhoe'  four 
times  before  I  ever  saw  it  on  a  list.  When 
I  called  for  another,  just  as  good,  father 
handed  me  'Quentin  Durward'  and  'The 
Talisman,'  but  I  couldn't  get  interested  in 
either  of  them.  Anyway  I'm  sick  of  look- 
ing at  print.  Can  you  stand  a  road  full 
of  thank-you-ma'ams*?"  I  could  and  did. 
Books  were  forgotten  in  the  enchantment 
of  that  wood-road  nor  did  we  speak  of 
them  again  during  a  week  of  perfect 
June  weather,  for  I  too  have  been  often 
"sick  of  looking  at  print,"  and  quite  con- 
tent as  child  and  grownup  to  go  on  from 
one  vacation  day  to  another  without  open- 
ing a  book  until  one  day  I  chance  to  come 
upon  something  I  can't  resist. 

On  such  a"  day — a  morning  in  early 
June — I  had  been  sent  to  dust  a  guest- 
room and  place  some  roses  there.  Throw- 
ing wide  the  windows,  I  proceeded  to  my 
task  only  as  far  as  a  table  on  which  lay 
a  little  green-covered  book  I  had  never 
noticed  before — "The  Vision  of  Sir  Laun- 


196    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

fal."  I  read  it  through  three  times,  and 
then  I  walked  straight  out  into  that  June 
day — dusting  and  flowers  forgotten — 
down  through  the  apple  orchard  and  on 
across  open  fields  to  a  sunny  pasture,  there 
to  drop  down  on  a  great  flat  stone  beside 
a  brook  with  the  poem  in  full  possession 
of  me.  The  printed  book  had  been  left 
far  behind — it  so  often  is — nor  did  I  feel 
the  desire  to  repeat  any  of  the  lines.  The 
beauty  of  the  poem  had  shot  through  my 
consciousness  and  stirred  a  new  sense  of 
wonder  and  delight  in  a  perfect  June  day. 
I  was  twelve  years  old  that  summer  and 
had  such  an  anthology  as  "Golden  Num- 
bers"— with  its  "Chanted  Calendar," 
"Green  Things  Growing,"  "On  the 
Wing"  and  all  its  other  invitations  to  read 
poetry  for  the  pure  joy  of  the  experience 
— been  in  existence,  I  might  now  be  look- 
ing back  upon  it  as  one  of  my  vacation 
books.  But  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin  and 
Nora  Smith  had  not  yet  begun  to  make 
jBummer  and  winter  holiday  with  their 
"Posy  Ring,"  their  "Tales  of  Laughter," 
and  "Tales  of  Wonder."  Even  "Timo- 


VACATION  READING        197 

thy's  Quest,"  so  true  to  the  spirit  of  child- 
hood and  to  the  life  of  a  near-by  town- 
ship, was  still  to  be  written. 

The  visitors  who  came  to  stay  in  the 
guest-room  brought  with  them  copies  of 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett's  "Deephaven"  and 
another  book  of  her  short  stories.  One  of 
these  stories — whose  title  I've  forgotten 
— I  still  recall  with  a  strong  sense  of  its 
reality;  and  the  impression  it  left  with 
me  that  the  lives  of  people  who  lived  up 
and  down  the  country  roads  over  which  I 
so  often  drove  with  my  father,  might  have 
just  such  stories  behind  them. 

That  stories  could  be  lived  as  well  as 
dreamed  I  was  now  sure.  Even  as  a  child 
I  felt  this  quality  in  Miss  Jewett,  the  gift 
of  giving  back  "the  very  life"  as  Kipling 
tells  her  in  a  letter  about  "The  Country 
of  the  Pointed  Firs."  "So  many  people 
of  lesser  sympathy,"  he  reminds  her, 
"have  missed  the  lovely  New  England 
landscape  and  the  genuine  New  England 
nature.  I  don't  believe  even  you  know 
how  good  that  work  is." 


198    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

The  short  story  *  I  remember  so  clearly 
is  that  of  an  elderly  New  England  woman 
facing  the  necessity  of  giving  up  her  old 
home.  Surprised  by  the  visit  of  a  nephew 
and  his  family,  she  conceals  her  distress 
of  mind  by  a  camouflage  of  baking  pow- 
der biscuits  and  hot  gingerbread.  As  she 
puts  the  tins  into  the  oven,  she  remembers 
that  she  has  given  the  last  drop  of  cream 
she  had  in  the  house  as  well  as  the  last  bit 
of  pound  cake  to  a  little  girl  who  had  come 
early  in  the  afternoon  in  the  hope  of  find- 
ing some  work  to  do  in  her  summer  vaca- 
tion. Since  she  had  to  disappoint  the 
child  she  must  offer  consolation  of  some 
kind — cream  and  pound  cake  vanished. 
Moreover  she  expressed  no  regret,  but 
cheerfully  rose  to  meet  the  present  emer- 
gency by  crossing  the  railway  track  to 
fetch  a  fresh  pitcher  of  cream.  On  her 
return  a  train  stood  in  her  path.  Hastily 
mounting  the  steps  to  the  platform  she 
was  about  to  descend  on  the  other  side 
when  the  train  began  to  move;  and  bare- 
headed, holding  her  pitcher  of  cream,  the 

*  The  Late  Supper  in  "Old  Friends  and  New." 


VACATION  READING        199 

hospitable  soul  presently  finds  herself  in- 
side a  Pullman  car,  speeding  on  to  a  dis- 
tant station.  Of  course,  she  finds  some 
one  in  need  of  cream.  This  time  it  is  not 
a  child  but  the  invalid  aunt  of  the  young 
lady  who  lends  her  a  "fascinator"  and 
money  for  the  return  ticket.  A  few  days 
later  these  travelers  solve  their  problem 
as  well  as  hers  by  coming  to  stay  with  her 
for  the  summer.  The  little  girl  is  en- 
gaged to  run  errands  and  wash  dishes,  and 
the  reader  is  left  with  an  all-pervading 
sense  of  the  kindliness  of  the  world  be- 
yond New  England,  from  which  the  trav- 
elers came,  as  well  as  with  a  delightful 
picture  of  that  true  hospitality  which  takes 
no  account  of  age  or  station  in  life  and  is 
to  be  found  alike  in  Old  England  and  New 
England.  Years  later  I  was  reminded  of 
this  story  by  certain  chapters  in  "Cran- 
ford" — that  "visionary  country  home"  of 
Anne  Thackeray  Ritchie  "which,"  she 
says,  "I  have  visited  all  my  life  long  (in 
spirit)  for  refreshment  and  change  of 
scene." 

"But  will  the  girl  of  to-day  read  any- 


200    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

thing  so  slow  as  'Cranford'  or  those  charm- 
ing stories  of  Miss  Jewett — 'The  Queen's 
Twin,'  'A  White  Heron,'  or  'The  Coun- 
try of  the  Pointed  Firs"?"  Not  always, 
but  I  have  so  often  shared  my  delight  in 
these  stories  with  groups  of  girls  who  have 
just  begun  to  connect  "Little  Women'' 
with  the  life  of  Louisa  Alcott  as  they 
know  it  in  a  book,  and  "Rebecca  of  Sunny- 
brook  Farm"  with  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin, 
as  they  have  listened  to  her  reading  of  her 
"Child's  Journey  with  Dickens,"  that  my 
faith  is  very  strong  in  the  natural  appreci- 
ation of  the  girl  of  to-day  provided  she  is 
not  urged  to  read  any  given  book.  Put 
fine  books  in  her  way.  Let  her,  in  so  far 
as  may  be,  discover  for  herself  those  which 
seem  to  belong  to  her  and  in  her  own  good 
time  let  her  give  testimony  concerning 
them.  There  will  be  depths  as  well  as 
heights  in  her  reading  as  in  her  brother's. 
The  perfect  June  day  on  which  I  discov- 
ered "The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal"  was 
succeeded  by  several  rainy  ones  in  which 
I  discovered  a  barrelful  of  The  New  York 
Ledger  and  Golden  Days  stored  away  in 


VACATION  READING       201 

an  attic,  and  from  the  village  library  I 
read,  surreptitiously,  "St.  Elmo,"  "Bar- 
riers Burned  Away,"  and  "Tempest  and 
Sunshine."  The  latter  was  among  the 
first  of  my  "favorite  novels  of  a  brief  pe- 
riod." I  read  most  of  the  books  written 
by  Horatio  Alger,  Oliver  Optic,  Elijah 
Kellogg  and  other  popular  writers  for 
boys.  That  the  reading  of  all  these  books 
and  many  more  "did  me  no  harm,"  I  can 
state  with  no  such  assurance  as  do  the 
fathers  of  many  boys  I  have  known.  Nor 
is  such  negative  testimony  of  much  value 
in  the  preparation  of  lists  of  vacation 
reading.  We  are  slow  to  remember  that 
with  certain  notable  exceptions  the  chil- 
dren's books  loved  by  one  generation  are 
rarely  loved  by  the  next.  Poetry  and 
fairy  tales  and  some  few  stories  live  on 
with  little  change,  but  every  generation 
claims  its  popular  authors  for  both  boys 
and  girls. 

It  is  a  wise  parent,  scout  leader,  or  camp 
counselor  who  reads  books  already  in  the 
hands  of  boys  and  girls  before  making  a 
selection  for  his  summer  home  or  camp. 


202    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

'Moreover,  he  must  read  with  a  forward 
as  well  as  a  backward  look,  if  he  would 
inspire  continuous  interest  and  respect  for 
his  judgment  of  books  and  his  discernment 
of  their  appeal  to  the  personalities  of  his 
prospective  readers.  No  list,  however 
carefully  prepared,  registers  this  last  all- 
important  element.  Nothing  short  of 
give-and-take  reading  and  discussion  of 
books  with  children  and  young  people  will 
ever  supply  it;  and  no  time  is  more  fa- 
vorable for  such  interchange  than  the 
rainy  morning,  the  hot  afternoon,  or  the 
cool  night  of  a  summer  holiday. 

Fortunate  is  the  public  library  that 
stands  at  the  meeting  of  vacation  ways, 
and  receives  on  return  of  its  bocfks  lent  for 
vacation  reading  first-hand  evidence  to 
show  how  these  same  books  "got  over"  to 
boys  and  girls  all  the  way  from  Maine  to 
California — from  Canada  to  Florida. 
Such  evidence  is  invaluable  in  giving  life 
and  color  to  the  selection  of  books  at  any 
season,  and  there  has  grown  up  in  the  sum- 
mer city  of  New  York  as  a  result  of  it  a 
kind  of  tradition  that  vacation  reading  is 


VACATION  READING       203 

as  much  fun  as  anything  else.  That  it 
has  taken  a  natural  place  among  summer 
sports  and  amusements  there  was  convinc- 
ing evidence  in  the  summer  of  1916,  when 
children  under  sixteen  years  old  were  de- 
prived of  the  privileges  of  the  public  li- 
brary by  the  Health  Department  for  a 
period  of  nearly  three  months.  "First  the 
movies  closed,  now  the  library.  Gee! 
they'll  be  keeping  us  out  of  the  river 
next!"  exclaimed  a  boy  on  returning  his 
books  to  one  of  the  branch  libraries  near 
the  Harlem  river.  The  motion-picture 
houses  reopened  early  in  September  for  the 
admission  of  children  of  twelve  years  and 
older.  No  sooner  did  this  become  known 
than  the  boys  and  girls  flocked  to  the  li- 
braries in  all  parts  of  the  city.  Great  was 
their  disappointment  and  surprise  not  to 
be  admitted  there.  Although  it  was 
known  that  the  public  schools  would  not 
be  open  until  the  last  week  in  September, 
it  was  popularly  rumored  "If  the  movies, 
why  not  the  libraries'?"  "I'm  so  lone- 
some for  books,"  pleaded  a  little  Russian 
girl,  to  be  echoed  by  thousands  of  others 


204    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

from  the  Battery  to  the  Bronx.  Even  the 
patrons  of  large  and  popular  private  col- 
lections of  "Motor  Boys,"  "Aviator 
Girls,"  "Elsie  books,"  and  "Alger  books" 
had  become  bored.  "The  books  we  had 
were  all  alike,"  they  said  as  they  stretched 
out  eager  hands  for  the  Lang  Fairy  Books, 
for  Mark  Twain,  Howard  Pyle  and  Stev- 
enson, for  Altsheler,  Louisa  Alcott,  Kate 
Douglas  Wiggin,  Paul  Du  Chaillu  and 
other  authors  not  to  be  found  in  second- 
hand shops,  on  push-carts,  or  in  the  pos- 
session of  their  friends.  The  owner  of 
one  of  these  private  libraries,  who  had 
been  lending  from  it  generously,  appeared 
at  his  branch  library  on  the  opening  day 
to  ask  for  "Men  of  Iron"  and  for  certain 
other  books  which  he  said  "cost  too  much" 
to  buy,  for  his  own  library.  A  boy  who 
was  looking  for  "Hugh  Wynne"  re- 
marked, with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  that  he 
had  had  nothing  to  read  all  summer  ex- 
cept The  Ladies'  Home  Journal.  Many 
and  intimate  were  the  revelations  concern- 
ing the  reading  of  boys  and  girls  during 
that  long,  oppressive  summer  vacation,  for 


VACATION  READING       205 

although  denied  admission  to  the  libra- 
ries, the  children  were  not  prevented  from 
talking  with  the  children's  librarians  as 
they  met  them  in  the  streets.  No  one  who 
spent  any  part  of  that  summer  in  New 
York  will  ever  forget  it  or  fail  to  give 
books  a  different  place  in  the  vacation  days 
of  those  who  stay  at  home  as  well  as  of 
those  who  "ride  away"  to  the  country,  the 
mountains,  or  the  seashore.  The  element 
of  companionship  in  books  selected  for  va- 
cation reading  was  brought  home  more 
vividly  than  ever  before.  Rows  of  peren- 
nial favorites  stood  unopened  on  library 
shelves — the  very  books  we  had  so  often 
recognized  in  the  hands  of  children  who, 
like  "David  Copperfield,"  might  be  seen 
"reading  for  dear  life"  on  the  doorsteps 
of  crowded  streets,  on  the  roofs  of  tene- 
ment houses,  on  the  fire  escapes,  in  shady 
corners  of  parks  and  playgrounds,  on  the 
recreation  piers,  on  ferryboats,  under  the 
bridges : — wherever  it  is  humanly  possible 
for  children  to  read  library  books,  there 
they  are  read  in  vacation  time. 

"Don't  you  think  John  ought  to  follow 


206     ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

some  special  line  in  his  reading  this  sum- 
mer*?" asked  an  anxious  mother.  By  all 
means,  if  he  has  a  special  interest  and  a 
craving  to  satisfy  it  with  books,  provide 
him  with  a  liberal  supply  of  histories, 
books  of  exploration,  Greek  myths,  Ar- 
thurian legends,  Norse  stories,  natural  his- 
tories, stories  of  animals,  Indians — what- 
ever may  be  drawing  him  most  strongly; 
but  don't  lay  out  a  special  course  of  read- 
ing for  John  or  Mary  if  you  want  them  to 
love  books  and  form  natural  associations 
with  them.  Let  them  choose  for  them- 
selves from  a  large  and  varied  collection 
the  books  they  would  like  to  take  away 
with  them  or  would  like  to  read  to  forget 
that  they  cannot  go  away.  You  would 
have  liked  to  do  that  at  their  age,  wouldn't 
you*?  In  the  presence  of  books  and  chil- 
dren the  anxious  mother  succumbed  to  the 
reminder  of  her  own  youth,  and  next  day 
came  accompanied  not  only  By  John  and 
Mary  but  by  Barbara  and  Michael,  to 
each  of  whom  is  accorded  the  vacation 
privilege  of  taking  eight  books  on  a  card. 
The  anxious  mother  is  no  longer  appre- 


VACATION  READING       207 

hensive  concerning  John's  future  career, 
but  lends  yeoman's  service  in  testing  books 
from  the  children's  standpoint,  and  is  re- 
warded by  being  told  she  may  choose  two 
of  each  eight  "to  please  yourself." 

JOHN'S  LIST 

(John  is  just  a  nice  all-round  boy  about  thir- 
teen years  old.) 

The  Boys'  Book  of  Model  Aeroplanes. 

The  American  Boys'  Book  of  Signs,  Signals, 

and  Symbols. 
The  Book  of  a  Naturalist. 
The  Cruise  of  the  Cachalot. 
Captains  Courageous. 
The  Three  Musketeers. 
The  Mysterious  Island. 
Kidnapped. 

BARBARA'S  LIST 

(Barbara    is    rather    dreamy — wants    to    be 
beautiful  and  popular,  about  twelve  years  old.) 
Golden  Numbers. 
How  to  Swim. 
Andersen's    Fairy    Tales.      (For    The    Snow 

Queen,  The  Wild  Swans  and  The  Little 

Mermaid.) 

Stories  from  Old  French  Romance. 
Kenilworth. 
Cheney's  Life  of  Louisa  Alcott. 


208    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Little  Women  (to  reread). 
Master  Simon's  Garden 

or 
Mary's  Meadow. 

MARY'S  LIST 

(Mary  is  ten  years  old  and  very  practical — 
climbs  trees.) 

When  Mother  Lets  Us  Make  Candy. 
The  Swiss  Family  Robinson  (for  rereading). 
What  Happened  to  Inger  Johanne.    (Delight- 
ful stories  from  the  Norwegian.) 
The  Slowcoach. 

Conundrums,  Riddles,  Puzzles  and  Games. 
Jack  and  Jill. 
The  Peterkin  Papers. 
The  Princess  and  the  Goblin. 
The  Adventures  of  Buffalo  Bill. 

MICHAEL'S  LIST 

(Michael  is  nine  years  old,  with  a  strong  in- 
terest in  natural  history  and  fairy  tales.) 
Grimm's  Fairy  Tales. 
The  Merry  Adventures  of  Robin  Hood. 
The  Children's  Book. 
The  Jungle  Book. 
Alice  in  Wonderland. 
The  Pied  Piper. 
The  Burgess  Bird  Book. 
Pinocchio,   the   Adventures   of   an   Italian. 
Marionette. 


VACATION  READING       209 

Michael  will  welcome  "The  Burgess 
Animal  Book"  when  it  is  published.  He 
pores  over  Hornaday's  "American  Nat- 
ural History"  and  every  illustrated  nat- 
ural history  he  can  find. 

"I've  a  shrewd  suspicion,"  says  the  chil- 
dren's librarian,  who  contributed  this  se- 
lection of  books  made  by  one  family,  "that 
each  child  will  read  the  other's  books.  In 
that  way  the  impractical  ones  often  get 
the  benefit  of  the  selection  of  the  practical 
minded,  and  vice  versa.  It  will  be  good 
for  Barbara  to  read  'The  Peterkin  Papers,' 
and  it  won't  hurt  Mary  to  read  'Golden 
Numbers'  on  the  sly — up  in  her  tree." 

There  is  always  much  rereading  of  old 
favorites  in  the  summer  vacation :  "Mother 
Goose,"  "The  Nonsense  Book,"  "The 
Child's  Garden  of  Verses,"  "Just  So  Sto- 
ries," the  "Arabian  Nights,"  the  "Fairy 
Tales"  of  the  Grimms  and  Hans  Ander- 
sen, "The  Home  Book  of  Verse  for  Young 
Folks,"  "Little  Women,"  "The  Last  of 
the  Mohicans,"  "Treasure  Island,"  "Alice 
in  Wonderland,"  "Through  the  Looking 
Glass,"  "The  Princess  and  Curdie,"  "The 


210    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

Jungle  Books."  And  from  this  rereading 
there  comes  an  invigoration  of  mind  and 
spirit  which  is  often  reflected  in  the  speech 
of  the  returned  vacation  reader. 

"How  do  you  do,  Miss  Elegant  Fowl," 
was  the  gay  salute  of  one  small  boy  to  the 
librarian  who  received  his  vacation  books, 
and  well  it  is  for  her  prestige  that  she  is 
able  to  respond  in  the  same  vein.  She 
must  not  become  stodged  with  books  or 
with  theories  of  children's  reading  if  she 
would  take  a  natural  place  in  vacation 
days  as  "the  lady  who  knows  all  the  books 
by  heart — knows  how  to  skip  the  dull 
parts  and  how  to  substitute  one  book  for 
another  when  the  one  you  really  want  is 
being  read  by  somebody  else." 

"I've  finished  'The  Wonderful  Adven- 
tures of  Nils'  and  I  want  you  to  send  me 
the  second  volume  right  away,"  wrote 
Edouard  from  the  country  last  summer; 
"I'm  half  way  through  'Little  Smoke'  but 
I  like  'Nils'  the  best."  Edouard,  whose 
devotion  to  Thornton  Burgess  has  been 
chronicled  in  The  Bookman,  was  ten  years 
old  when  he  discovered  the  Swedish  classic 


VACATION  READING       211 

in  a  selection  of  eight  books  chosen  with 
a  view  to  relieving  the  boredom  of  a  sum- 
mer vacation  in  a  country  boarding  house 
where  he  was  stranded  with  his  mother 
and  baby  sister.  The  selection  included 
stories  of  Indians,  pirates,  South  Sea  Is- 
landers, the  "Just  So  Stories,"  and  Thorn- 
ton Burgess's  "Danny  Meadow  Mouse." 
The  second  volume  of  "Nils"  was 
promptly  dispatched  by  post.  On  Edou- 
ard's  return  "David  Blaize  and  the  Blue 
Door"  lay  upon  my  desk  to  be  greeted 
with :  "Here's  another  of  those  l^ooks  I 
know  aren't  true  but  I  wish  might  be. 
May  I  take  it*?"  He  vanished,  to  return 
next  day  with  eyes  shining  over  the  chap- 
ter on  flying.  "Something  like  'Nils'  only 
a  different  country  and  a  younger  boy," 
he  said,  as  he  picked  up  a  copy  of  "Lilliput 
Levee"  which  he  read  on  the  spot,  chuck- 
ling delightedly.  "May  I  take  this  to 
learn  to  speak  in  school  ?  It  would  make 
everybody  laugh  except  our  teacher."  He 
decided  that  the  risk  might  be  too  great 
for  an  ordinary  school  day.  "Lilliput 
Levee"  must  be  read  in  holiday  mood. 


212     ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

This  summer  Edouard,  at  eleven,  is  still 
reading  Thornton  Burgess  but  is  discover- 
ing Seton's  "Biography  of  a  Grizzly," 
"Wild  Animals  I  have  Known,"  and 
"Two  Little  Savages."  "The  Red  Fox" 
of  G.  C.  D.  Roberts  has  given  him  great 
delight.  I  know  that  he  will  listen  fas- 
cinated to  such  chapters  as  "Bats,"  "The 
Toad  as  Traveler,"  and  "A  Sentimentalist 
on  Foxes"  from  Hudson's  "Book  of  a  Nat- 
uralist"; and  will  read  for  himself  "The 
Discontented  Squirrel,"  which  is  in  real- 
ity a  very  charming  story  for  still  younger 
children  with  its  vivid  picture  of  the  mi- 
gration of  squirrels. 

Edouard  goes  to  a  boys'  camp  this  sum- 
mer, and  it  is  easy  to  picture  him  vibrat- 
ing between  the  groups  of  older  and 
younger  boys  at  story-hour  time.  If  the 
opening  chapters  of  John  Muir's  "Story 
of  My  Boyhood  and  Youth"  are  read 
aloud  he  will  be  held  with  the  same  in- 
terest he  has  manifested  in  the  lives  of 
Joan  of  Arc,  Mark  Twain,  and  Cardinal 
Mercier.  "I  can  tell  a  great  man  when 
I  see  him — nobody  needs  to  point  him  out 


VACATION  READING       213 

to  me,"  Edouard  said  of  Cardinal  Mercier 
as  that  great  figure  passed  down  the  stair- 
way of  the  Library  and  stopped  at  the 
entrance  to  speak  to  a  little  girl  who  stood 
outside. 

This  quick  sensibility  of  childhood  to 
great  things  in  life  or  in  literature  is  too 
often  forgotten  by  those  who  would  bring 
them  together  by  a  preconceived  plan. 
Opal  Whiteley's  "Journal  of  an  Under- 
standing Heart"  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly, 
and  Hilda  Conkling's  "Poems  by  a  Little 
Girl"  are  stirring  something  deeper  than 
surface  criticism  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
have  not  lost  their  sense  of  wonder  in  the 
presence  of  childhood.  I  look  upon  their 
publication  not  alone  with  the  joy  of  an 
exploring  reader,  but  as  most  significant 
signs  that  we  are  moving  toward  a  larger 
and  freer  development  of  writing  and  pub- 
lishing books  for  children  in  the  twenti- 
eth century. 

"  The  Call  of  the  Wild'  is  the  best  book 
I  ever  read,"  said  one  of  a  group  of  boys, 
two  or  three  years  older  than  Edouard, 
who  were  discussing  dog  stories  in  a 


214    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

branch  library  recently.  "I  read  it  for  the 
first  time  in  Alaska,"  he  continued,  "and 
I  know  it  is  true  to  life  there.  When  I 
came  home  I  read  it  again  and  I  liked  it 
even  better  here  in  New  York  than  in 
Alaska — I  could  imagine  myself  back 
there." 

This  boy,  who  has  traveled  extensively 
in  South  America  and  Europe  as  well  as 
in  the  United  States,  brings  to  his  reading 
at  the  age  of  twelve  a  background  of  great 
interest  to  other  boys.  Nearly  all  of  the 
group  had  read  "Lad"  and  liked  it  very 
much.  One  boy  had  read  John  Muir's 
"Stickeen,"  a  wonderful  story  to  read 
aloud.  "Pierrot,  Dog  of  Belgium"  was 
recommended  by  another.  "The  Dogs  of 
Boytown"  was  characterized  as  a  book 
they  would  have  liked  better  had  the  boys 
and  the  town  been  left  out.  The  inter- 
est of  this  book  is  in  its  information  con- 
cerning different  breeds  of  dogs  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  well-known  writer  on  the 
subject. 

"Bob,  Son  of  Battle"  and  "Greyfriars 
Bobby"  would  appeal  to  such  a  group  of 


VACATION  READING       215 

boys   more  strongly   two  or   three  years 
later. 

There  is  a  librarian  whose  love  of  dogs 
and' keen  interest  in  vacation  reading  come 
strongly  to  mind  as  this  article  reaches, 
not  its  end,  but  its  space  limits — Caroline 
M.  Hewins  of  the  Hartford  Public  Li- 
brary. Long  before  children's  rooms 
were  opened  in  our  public  libraries  or  na- 
ture study  had  been  undertaken  by  the 
schools  and  museums,  Miss  Hewins's 
Agassiz  Club  and  Vacation  Reading  Hours 
were  established  features  in  the  summer 
life  of  the  City  of  Hartford,  radiating  to 
other  cities  and  country  places  through 
book-lists  and  articles  on  children's  read- 
ing of  equal  value  to  parents,  teachers,  and 
librarians.  Miss  Hewins's  "Books  for 
Boys  and  Girls.  A  Selected  List"  is  the 
best  list  I  know  of.  The  latest  edition, 
printed  in  1915,  the  lineal  descendant  of 
a  list  selected  by  her  in  1882  in  which 
Tom  Sawyer  is  given  his  true  place  among 
children's  books,  is  characterized  by  the 
same  wide  knowledge  of  books  and  rich 
experience  of  life.  This  list  may  well  be 


216    ROADS  TO  CHILDHOOD 

supplemented  by  lists  including  more  re- 
cent publications  selected  by  The  Book- 
shop for  Boys  and  Girls  of  the  Women's 
Educational  and  Industrial  Union  of  Bos- 
ton, and  by  the  new  Handbook  for  Scout 
Masters,  and  the  lists  of  books  for  Boy 
Scouts  selected  by  Franklin  K.  Mathiews 
of  the  Boy  Scouts  of  America.  "Scouting 
for  Girls,"  the  new  official  Handbook  of 
Girl  Scouts,  contains  a  reading-list  se- 
lected by  its  editor,  Josephine  Daskam 
Bacon,  in  conference  with  scout  leaders 
and  librarians. 

No  representative  list  of  books  has  yet 
grown  out  of  the  varied  experiences  in 
summer  camps  for  boys  and  girls.  Mean- 
while, old  and  new  books  are  being  sent 
to  summer  camps  in  increasing  numbers 
to  be  tried  out  in  the  open,  and  to  gather 
fresh  associations  from  vacation  readers. 


INDEX 

A   LIST  OF  AUTHORS,   TITLES,    AND   ILLUSTRATORS    MEN- 
TIONED  IN    THE  TEXT 


A  Apple  Pie.    By  Kate  Greenaway.    Warne.     142 

Abbott,  Jacob,  84 

Abbott,  Jane  D.,  113 

Abbott,  Willis  J.,  65 

Adventures  in  Beaver  Stream  Camp.  By  A.  R. 
Dugmore.  Doubleday.  64 

Adventures  of  Buffalo  Bill.  By  W.  F.  Cody.  Har- 
per. 208 

;£sop,  52,  131 

^Esop's  Fables.  Edited  by  Joseph  Jacobs.  Mac- 
millan.  144 

^sop  for  Children.  Illustrated  by  Milo  Winter. 
Rand.  93 

After  They  Came  Out  of  the  Ark.  By  E.  Boyd 
Smith.  Putnam.  52 

Alcott,  Louisa  M.,  114,  177,  181,  200 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  71,  176 

Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland.  By  Lewis 
Carroll.  Macmillan.  53,  94,  140,  146,  208,  209 

Allingham,  William,  124,  125,  160 

Altsheler,  Joseph,  33,  34,  89,  183 

American  Boys'  Book  of  Signs,  Signals  and  Sym- 
bols. By  D.  C.  Beard.  Lippincott.  65,  207 

American  Natural  History.  By  W.  T.  Hornaday. 
Scribner.  209 

217 


2i8  INDEX 

Americans  by  Adoption.  By  Joseph  Husband.  At- 
lantic. 167 

Andersen,  Hans  Christian,  24,   102,  104,   164 

Andersen's  Fairy  Tales.  Translated  by  H.  L.  Braek- 
stad.  Century.  151,  207 

Andersen's  Fairy  Tales.  Translated  by  Mrs.  Edgar 
Lucas.  Button.  151,  207,  209 

Arabian  Nights.  Edited  by  F.  J.  Olcott.  Holt. 
148 

Arabian  Nights.  Edited  by  Mrs.  K.  D.  Wiggin  and 
N.  A.  Smith.  Scribner.  148,  209 

Art  of  the  Story-teller.  By  M.  L.  Shedlock. 
Appleton.  164 

Art  of  Writing.  By  Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch. 
Putnam.  29 

Asbjornsen,  P.  C.,  152 

Ashford,  Daisy,  134 

At  the  Back  of  the  North  Wind.  By  George  Mac- 
Donald.  McKay.  118,  154 

Atlantic  Monthly,  71,  213 

Aulnoy,  M.  C.  J.  Comtesse  d',  92 


B 

Bacon,  Mrs.  Josephine  Daskam,  155,  216 

Baker,  Olaf,  116 

Baldwin,  James,  115,  153 

Barbour,  Ralph  Henry,  117,  183 

Barrie,  Sir  James  M.,  53,  68,  134 

Beard,  Daniel  C,  65 

Beard,  Patten,  59 

Beauty  and   the  Beast   Picture   Book.     By  Walter 

Crane.     Lane.     145 

Ben  the  Battle  Horse.    By  Walter  Dyer.    Holt.    115 
Benson,  E.  F.,  94,  136,  146,  181 
Bergengren,  Ralph,  58,  147 


INDEX  219 

Beston,  Henry  B.,  100 

Betty   Bell.     By  Fannie  Kilbourne.     Harper.     114, 

190 

Betty  Leicester.     By  S.  O.  Jewett.     Houghton.     39 
Bible,  52,  105,  129,  131,  140 
Bible  for  Children.    Arranged  from  the  King  James 

Version.     Century.     144 
Big  Book  for  Little  Folks,  No.  3.    By  John  Martin. 

Houghton.    108 
Big  Book  of  Nursery  Rhymes.     Edited  by  W.  C. 

Jerrold.     Button.     142 
Biography  of  a  Grizzly.    By  E.  T.  Seton.    Century. 

212 

Bishop,  Austin,  91,  115 

Blake,  William,  24,  68,  124,  142 

Blue  Aunt.     By  E.  O.  White.     Houghton.    31,  65 

Blue  Fairy  Book.  Edited  by  Andrew  Lang.  Long- 
mans. 154 

Blue  Poetry  Book.  Edited  by  Andrew  Lang.  Long- 
mans. 151 

Bob,  Son  of  Battle.  By  Alfred  Ollivant.  Double- 
day.  214 

Bob  Thorpe,  Sky  Fighter.  By  Austin  Bishop.  Har- 
court.  115 

Bonaparte.  By  Georges  Montorgueil.  Brentano. 
156 

Bonner,  John,  87 

Book  of  a  Naturalist.  By  W.  H.  Hudson.  Doran. 
207,  212 

Book  of  Bravery.    By  H.  W.  Lanier.    Scribner.    65 

Book  of  Bravery,  Second  Series.  By  H.  W.  Lanier. 
Scribner.  116 

Book  of  Elves  and  Fairies.  Edited  by  F.  J.  Olcott. 
Houghton.  57 

Book  of  Verses.    Edited  by  E.  V.  Lucas.    Holt.    143 

Book  of  Wonder  Voyages.  Edited  by  Joseph  Ja- 
cobs. Putnam,  ilj 


220  INDEX 

Bookman,  The,  80,  169,  192,  210 

Books  for  Boys  and  Girls.    A  selected  list.    By  C 

M.  Hewins.     A.  L.  A.    215 
Bowser,   the   Hound.     By  T.  W.   Burgess.     Little. 

169 
Boy  Who  Knew  What  the  Birds  Said.    By  Padraic 

Colum.    Macmillan.    54 
Boys'  Book  of  Model  Aeroplanes.    By  F.  A.  Collins. 

Century.     207 
Boy's    King    Arthur.      Edited    by    Sidney    Lanier. 

Scribner.     153 
Boys'    Life    of    Mark    Twain.      By    A.    B.    Paine. 

Harper.     34 
Boy  Scouts  Book  of  Stories.     By  F.  K.  Mathiews. 

Appleton.     117 
Boy   Scouts   in   Glacier    Park.     By   W.    P.   Eaton. 

Wilde.    64 

Braekstad,  H.  L.   (translator),  151 
Bransom,  Paul   (illustrator),  54,  63 
Brooke,  L.  Leslie  (illustrator),  59,  93,  104,  143 
Brown,  Abbie  Farwell,  151 
Browne,  Frances,  155 
Brownies  and   Prince  Florimel.     By  Palmer  Cox. 

Century.    52 
Brownies:  Their  Book.    By  Palmer  Cox.     Century. 

147 
Brushwood  Boy.    By  Rudyard  Kipling.    Macmillan. 

185 

Bull,  Charles  Livingston    (illustrator),   116 
Bunyan,  John,  140,  150 

Burgess,  Thornton,  W.,  50,  51,  118,  168,  212 
Burgess  Animal  Book.     By  T.  W.  Burgess.     Little. 

168 
Burgess   Bird    Book.     By  T.   W.   Burgess.     Little. 

21,  118,  168,  208 
Burnett,  Mrs.  Frances  Hodgson,  119 


INDEX  221 


Cady,  Harrison  (illustrator),  52 

Caldecott,  Randolph  (illustrator),  42,  93,  104,  137, 
138,  141,  155 

Call  of  the  Wild.  By  Jack  London.  Macmillan. 
213 

Canadian  Wonder  Tales.  Edited  by  Cyrus  Mac- 
millan. Lane.  56 

Canfield,  Dorothy,  86,  166 

Canfield,  Flavia,  113 

Captains  Courageous.  By  Rudyard  Kipling.  Cen- 
tury. 64,  207 

Carrick,  Valery,  57 

Carroll,  Lewis,  16,  24,  53,  146 

Cart  of  Many  Colors.  By  Nannine  Meiklejohn. 
Button.  86 

Cervantes-Saavedra,  Miguel  de,  32,  153 

Chicken  World.    By  E.  Boyd  Smith.     Putnam.     147 

Childhood.     By  Mrs.  Alice  Meynell.    Button.    41 

Childhood  in  Literature  and  Art.  By  H.  E.  Scud- 
der.  Houghton.  72 

Children's  Book.  Edited  by  H.  E.  Scudder.  Hough- 
ton.  102,  144,  208 

Children's  Fairyland.     By  H.  M.  Olcott.     Holt.     92 

Children's  Homer.  By  Padraic  Colum.  Macmillan. 
54,  ISO 

Children's  Life  of  the  Bee.  By  Maurice  Maeter- 
linck, selected  and  arranged  by  Alfred  Sutro  and 
Herschel  Williams.  Bodd.  118 

Child's  Garden  of  Verses.  By  R.  L,  Stevenson. 
Scribner.  142,  209 

Child's  History  of  France.  By  John  Bonner. 
Harper.  87 

Child's  Journey  with  Bickens.  By  Mrs.  K.  D.  Wig- 
gin.  Houghton.  39,  200 

Christmas  Angel.    By  Katharine  Pyle.    Little.    56 


222  INDEX 

Christmas  Tree.    By  Charles  Dickens.    Hodder.  20 

Cid,  The,  31 

Coffin,  Charles  Carleton,  90 

Collins,  Francis  A.,  65 

Collins,  Wilkie,  185 

Colum,  Padraic,  54,   150 

Comrade   Rosalie.     By   M.   C.   Du  Bois.     Century. 

H3 

Conkling,  Hilda,  157,  161,  162,  213 
Conundrums,  Riddles,  Puzzles  and  Games.     By  S. 

J.  Cutter.     Kegan.     208 
Converse,  Florence,  85 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  33,  89 
Copeland,  Charles   (illustrator),  149 
Couch,    Sir    Arthur    Quiller,    27,    29,    99,    117,    146, 

186 
Country  of   the    Pointed   Firs.     By   S.   O.   Jewett. 

Houghton.     197,  200 

Cox,  Palmer  (illustrator  and  author),  52,  147 
Crane,  Lucy    (translator),   144 
Crane,  Walter   (illustrator),  144,  145,  150,  153 
Cranford.    By  Mrs.  E.  C.  Gaskell.    Macmillan.    185, 

200 
Crimson   Sweater.     By   R.   H.    Barbour.     Century. 

183 

Crothers,    Samuel   McChord,  45,  85 

Cruise  of  the  Cachalot.  By  Frank  Buller.  Apple- 
ton.  207 

Czechoslovak  Fairy  Tales.  By  Parker  Fillmore.  Har- 
court.  92,  in 

D 

Dana,  Mrs.  Richard  Henry,  Jr.,  105,  166 

Danny  Meadow  Mouse.    By  T.  W.  Burgess.    Little. 

50,  211 
David  Blaize.     By  E.  F.  Benson.    Doran.     189 


INDEX  223 

David  Blaize  and  the  Blue  Door.  By  E.  F.  Ben- 
son. Doran.  94,  06,  119,  136,  146,  211 

David  Copperfield.  By  Charles  Dickens.  Scribner. 
205 

Day,   Maurice  E.    (illustrator),  58,  75,  93,  98,   101, 

147 
Day  in  a  Child's  Life.  By  Kate  Greenaway.  Warne. 

142 

Deephaven.     By  S.  0.  Jewett.     Houghton.     197 
Defoe,  Daniel,  141,  152,  193 
Diaz,  Mrs.  Abby  Morton,  107,  149 
Dickens,  Charles,  20,  41,  135,  180,  185 
Dickinson,  Emily,  124,  158 
Diddie,    Dumps    and    Tot.      By    L.    C.    Pyrnelle. 

Harper.    53 

Doctor  Danny.    By  Ruth  Sawyer.    Harper.  112,  191 
Dr.   Jekyll   and   Mr.   Hyde.     By   R.   L.   Stevenson. 

Scribner.    186 
Dodge,  Louis,  53 

Dodge,  Mrs.  Mary  Mapes,  65,  71,  76 
Dogs   of   Boytown.     By  Walter  Dyer.     Holt.     65, 

214 

Don  Quixote,  31 
Don    Quixote    of   the    Mancha.     Retold    by   Judge 

Parry.    Lane.     153 
Don     Strong,    American.      By    William    Heyliger. 

Appleton.     168 
Doyle,  Conan,  185 
Drake,  Francis,  91 

Dream  Boats.     By  D.  S.  Walker.    Doubleday.    62 
Du  Bois,  Mary  Constance,  113 
Dugmore,  Arthur  Radcliffe,  64 
Dulac,  Edmund   (illustrator),  146 
Dumas,  Alexandre,  36,  186 
Dunsany,  Lord,  104 
Dyer,  Walter,  65,  115 


224  INDEX 


Eastern  Stories  and  Legends.    By  M.  L.  Shedlock. 

Dutton.     163,  164 
Eastman,  Charles,  63 
Eaton,  Walter  Prichard,  64 
Edgeworth,  Maria,  40,   134 
Eliot,  George,  41 
Elmendorf,  Lawrence,  93 
Emperor's  New  Clothes.     In  Fairy  Tales  by  H.  C. 

Andersen.    Dutton.    28 
English  Fairy  Tales.     Edited  by  Mrs.  F.  A.  Steel. 

Macmillan.     56 
English  Fairy  Tales.     By  Joseph  Jacobs.     Putnam. 

144 

Enright,  Maginel   (illustrator),  61 
Essays    on    Great   Writers.     By    H.    D.    Sedgwick. 

Houghton.    32 
Ewing,  Mrs.  Juliana  Horatia,  41,  155 


Fables  and  Folk  Stories.    Edited  by  H.  E.  Scudder. 

Houghton,  93,   101,   102,  103 
Fables  from  La  Fontaine.     Illustrated  by  Boutet  de 

Monvel.     S.  P.  C.  K.     146 
Fabre,  Jean  Henri,  22 
Fairy  Tales   from  the  Far  North.     By   P.   C.  As- 

bjornsen.     Nutt.     152 
Farmer's    Boy.     By   Randolph    Caldecott.     Warne. 

141 

Fillmore,  Parker,  92,  in 
Firelight  Fairy  Book.  By  H.  B.  Beston.     Atlantic. 

3i,98 

Ford,  H.  J.  (illustrator),  95,  136 
Forest  Runners.     By  Joseph  Altsheler.     Appleton. 

34 
France,  Anatole,  109 


INDEX  225 

French  Twins.    By  Mrs.  L.  F.  Perkins.    Houghton. 

62 
From  Appomattox  to  Germany.    By  Percy  Fitzhugh. 

Harper.     90 

Frost,  A.  B.   (illustrator),  148 
Frye,  Mary  H.  (illustrator),  152 
Fuertes,  Louis  Agassiz   (illustrator),  22,  118,  168 
Full  Speed  Ahead.    By  H.  B.  Beston.    Doubleday. 

IOO 

G 

Gaskell,  Mrs.  E.  C,  181 

Gentle  Reader.    By  S.  M.  Crothers.    Houghton.    85 
Gerson,   Virginia   (illustrator  and  author),   147 
Golden  Age.     By  Kenneth  Grahame.     Lane.    46 
Golden  Goose.    By  L.  L.  Brooke.    Warne.    143 
Golden  Numbers.    Edited  by  Mrs.  K.  D.  Wiggin  and 

N.  A.  Smith.     Doubleday.     151,  196,  207,  209 
Golden    Spears.      By    Edmund    Leamy.      Desmond 

Fitzgerald.     155 
Good  Old  Stories.    Edited  by  E.  S.  Smith.    Lothrop. 

116 

Good  Wolf.    By  Mrs.  F.  H.  Burnett.    Moffat.    119 
Grahame,  Kenneth,  46,  53 
Granny's   Wonderful   Chair.     By   Frances   Browne. 

Dutton.    155 
Gray,  Joslyn,  114 
Great     Stone     Face.      By     Nathaniel     Hawthorne. 

Houghton.    68 
Greenaway,  Kate   (illustrator  and  author),  59,  137, 

141,  142 

Gregory,  Lady,  121 
Greyfriars   Bobby.     By   Elinor  Atkinson.     Harper. 

214 

Grimm,  J.  L.  K.  and  W.  K.,  54 
Grimm's  Fairy  Tales.     Translated  by  Lucy  Crane, 

Macmillan.     144 


226  INDEX 

Grimm's   Fairy  Tales.     Translated  by  Mrs.   Edgar 

Lucas.     Lippincott.     144,  208,  209 
Grit  A-Plenty.    By  Dillon  Wallace.    Revell.    64 
Gulliver's  Travels.    By  Jonathan  Swift.    Macmillan. 

152 


Hale,  Edward  Everett,  107 

Hale,  Lucretia  P.,  107,  149 

Hale,  Susan,  105 

Half  -Back.     By  R.  H.  Barbour.     Appleton.     183. 

Handbook    for    Scout    Masters.      Boy    Scouts    of 

America.    216 
Hans   Brinker.     By  Mrs.   M.   M.   Dodge.     McKay. 

61 
Happy  Heart  Family.    By  Virginia  Gerson.    Duffield. 

147 

Happy  Jack.    By  T.  W.  Burgess.    Little.    52 
Harper's  Magazine,  130 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  148 
Harte,  Bret,  36 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  68,  141,  150 
Heart  of   Oak  Books.     Edited   by  C.   E.   Norton. 

Heath.    103 

Heighway,  Richard  (illustrator),  101,  144 
Henry,  O.,  117 
Herford,  Oliver.  134 
Hero  Stories  of  France.    By  E.  M.  Tappan.  Hough- 

ton.     166 

Heroes.     By  Charles  Kingsley.     Macmillan.  150 
Hewins,  Caroline  M.,  215 
Heyliger,  William,  117,  168,  187,  188 
High    Benton.      By    William    Heyliger.     Appleton. 

117,  187,  188 
Home  Book  of  Verse  for  Young  Folks.     By  B.  E. 

Stevenson.    Holt.     151,  209 
Hornaday,  William  T.,  52,  118 


INDEX  227 

Horse  Fair.    By  James  Baldwin.  Century.  115 
How  to   Swim.     By  Davis   Dalton.     Putnam.     207 
Huckleberry  Finn.     By  Mark  Twain.     Harper.    34, 

176,  188 

Hudson,  W.  H.  31,  68,  152,  212. 
Hugh  Wynne.     By  S.  W.  Mitchell.     Century.     204 
Hughes,  Thomas,  181,  189 
Hugo,  Victor,  41 
Husband,  Joseph,  167 

I 

Inklings  for  Thinklings.    By  Susan  Hale.    Marshall 

Jones.     106 
In    the    Days    of    the    Giants.     By   A.    F.    Brown. 

Houghton.     151 
In  the  Days  of  the  Guild.    By  L.  Lamprey.    Stokes. 

60 
In   the  Great  Apache   Forest.     By  J.   W.   Schultz. 

Houghton.     168 
Indian   Heroes  and  Great  Chieftains.     By  Charles 

Eastman.    Little.    63 
Indian    History    for    Young    Folks.      By    Francis 

Drake.    Harper.    91 
Irving,  Washington,  149 

Island   Nights   Entertainments.     By   R.   L.   Steven- 
son.    Scribner.     186 
Ivanhoe.     By  Sir  Walter   Scott.     Lippincott.     193, 

195 

J 

Jack  and  Jill.     By  L.  M.  Alcott.     Little.    208. 
Jackanapes.     By  Mrs.  J.  H.  Ewing.     S.   P.  C.  K. 

4i,  155 

Jacobs,  Joseph,  68,  101,  103,  119,  144 
Jane  Eyre.     By  Charlotte  Bronte.     Harper.     178 
Jane,  Joseph  and  John.    By  Ralph  Bergengren.    At- 
lantic.   57,  71,  75,  101,  147 


228  INDEX 

Jeanne  D'Arc.     By  Boutet  de  Monvel.     Brentano. 

127 
Jeremy.     By  Hugh  Walpole.     Doran.    41,  119,  135, 

140,  175,  178,  192 
Jerrold,  Walter  C.,  142 
Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  39,  43,  197 
Jim    Spurling,    Fisherman.      By    A.    W.    Tolman. 

Harper.    64 
Joan  of  Arc.    By  Boutet  de  Monvel.    Century.    119, 

147,  166,  212 

Job  (illustrator),  156 
Johnson,  Clifton,  103 
Journey  to  the  Garden  Gate.  By  R.  M.  Townsend. 

Houghton.     119 
Jungle  Book.     By  Rudyard  Kipling.     Century.     54, 

148,  208,  210 

Just  So  Stories.     By  Rudyard  Kipling.    Doubleday. 
145,  209,  211 


Kate  Greenaway.    By  M.  H.  Spielmann  and  G.  S. 

Layard.     Putnam.     137 

Kenilworth.    By  Sir  Walter  Scott.    Lippincott.    207 
Kidnapped.     By  R.  L.  Stevenson.     Scribner.     207 
Kilbourne,  Fannie,   114 
Kingsley,  Charles,  150 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  36,  53,  72,  141,  145,  148,  181,  197 
Knipe,  E.  B.  and  A.  A.,  113 


La  Fontaine,  52 

Lad.    By  A.  P.  Terhune.    Button.    214 

Lagerlof,  Selma,  136,  152 

Lamb,  Charles,  155 

Lamb,  Mary,  155 


INDEX  229 

Lamprey,  L.,  60 

Land  of  Fair  Play.     By  Geoffrey  Parsons.     Scrib- 

ner.    87 

Lang,  Andrew,  59,  150,  151,  154 
Lanier,  Henry  W.,  65,  116 
Lanier,  Sidney,  153 

Larkspur.     By   J.   D.   Abbott.     Lippincott.     114 
Last  of  the  Mohicans.     By  J.  F.  Cooper.    Scribner. 

89,  209 

Latham,  Harold,  117 
La  Varre,  William  J.,  115 
Leamy,  Edmund,  155 

Lear,  Edward   (illustrator  and  author),  69,  105,  142 
Letters   of    Sarah    Orne   Jewett.     Edited   by    Mrs. 

Annie    Fields.     Houghton.     43 
Letters.     By  Susan  Hale.     Marshall  Jones.     106 
Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte.     By  Mrs.  E.  C.  Gaskell. 

Harper.     181 

Lilliput  Lyrics.     By  W.  B.  Rands.     Lane.     211 
Little  Boy  Lost.     By  W.  H.  Hudson.     Knopf.    31, 

67,  152 
Little  Brother  and  Little  Sister.     By  The  Brothers 

Grimm.     Dodd.     54 

Little  Gateway  to  Science.     By  E.  M.  Patch.     At- 
lantic.    167 
Little    Smoke.      By    W.    O.    Stoddard.      Appleton. 

2IO 

Little  White  Bird.  By  Sir  J.  M.  Barrie.  Scribner. 
68 

Little  Women.  By  L.  M.  Alcott.  Little.  177,  200, 
208,  209 

Lo  and  Behold  Ye!  By  Seumas  MacManus.  Stokes. 
112 

Lone  Bull's  Mistake.  By  James  Schultz.  Hough- 
ton.  63 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,   145 

Lorenzini,  Carlo,  149 


230  INDEX 

Lost    Indian    Magic.     By   Grace  and   Carl    Moon. 

Stokes.    63 
Louisa  May  Alcott.    By  Mrs.  E.  D.  L.  Cheney. 

Little.     207 
Lowell,  Amy,  161,  162 
Lucas,  E.  V.,  22,  40,  143 
Lucas,  Mrs.  Edgar,  144,  151 

M 

MacDonald,  George,  154,  155 

Mackay,  Isabel,  58 

Macmillan,  Cyrus,  56 

MacManus,   Seumas,   112 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  118 

Mappe  of  Fairyland.  Designed  by  Bernard  Sleigh. 
Sidgwick.  165,  166 

Mare,  Walter  de  la,  04 

Marigold  Garden.  By  Kate  Greenaway.  Warne. 
141 

Martin,  John,  108 

Marty  Lends  a  Hand.  By  Harold  Latham.  Mac- 
millan. 117 

Mary  Olivier.  By  May  Sinclair.  Macmillan.  135, 
175,  181 

Mary's  Meadow.  By  Mrs.  J.  H.  Ewing.  Macmillan. 
208 

Master  Simon's  Garden.  By  Cornelia  Meigs.  Mac- 
millan. 31,  191,  208 

Mathiews,  Franklin  K.,  117,  216 

Matulka,  Jan   (illustrator),  92,  112 

Meigs,  Cornelia,  113,  191 

Meiklejohn,   Nannine,  85 

Merry  Adventures  of  Robin  Hood.  By  Howard 
Pyle.  Scribner.  153,  208 

Meynell,  Mrs.  Alice,  41 

Mijatovich,  Madame  E.  L,,  57 


INDEX  231 

Mill  on  the  Floss.     By  George  Eliot.    Blackie.     185 
Miss  Muffet's  Christmas  Party.    By  S.  M.  Crothers. 

Houghton.    45 
Monsieur      Beaucaire.       By     Booth      Tarkington. 

Doubleday.     185 
Montorgueil,  Georges,  156 
Monvel,  Boutet  de  (illustrator  and  author),  61,  127, 

146,  147 

Moon,  Grace  and  Carl,  63 
Mother    Goose,    59,   94,   209;    Illustrated    by   Kate 

Greenaway.    Warne.     141 ;  Illustrated  by  E.  Boyd 

Smith.    Putnam.    93;  Every-child's  Mother  Goose. 

Macmillan.    59;  Little  Mother  Goose.    Dodd.    60 
Mother's  Nursery  Tales.    Retold  by  Katharine  Pyle. 

Button.    55 
Mother    West    Wind    Where    Stories.     By   T.    W. 

Burgess.    Little.    50 
Muir,  John,  212,  214 
Mulock,  Dinah,  M.,  124 
Munro,  Kirk,  184 

My  Friend's  Book.    By  Anatole  France.    Lane.    109 
Mysterious  Island.    By  Jules  Verne.    Scribner.    63, 

207 

N 

Naval  Heroes  of  To-day.  By  F.  A.  Collins.  Cen- 
tury. 65 

New  Arabian  Nights.  By  R.  L.  Stevenson.  Scrib- 
ner. 186 

News  from  Notown.  By  E.  E.  Perkins.  Houghton. 
117 

Nonsense  Book.  By  Edward  Lear.  Duffield.  142, 
209 

Nonsense  Book.  By  Susan  Hale.  Marshall  Jones. 
105 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  103 


232  INDEX 

Nursery,  The,  131 

Nursery  Rhyme  Book.     Edited  by  Andrew  Lang. 
Warne.    59 

O 

Odyssey.     Edited  by  S.   H.  Butcher  and  Andrew 

Lang.     Macmillan.     150 
Olcott,  Frances  Jenkins,  57,  92,  148 
Olcott,  Harriet  Mead  (illustrator  and  author),  92 
Old     Fashioned     Tales.      Selected     E.    V.    Lucas. 

Stokes.    40 
Old  Friends  and  New.  By  S.  O.  Jewett.  Houghton. 

198 
On  Our  Hill.    By  Mrs.  J.  D.  Bacon.    Scribner.    50, 

155 

Our  Young  Folks,  107,  130 

Over  Indian  and  Animal  Trails.    By  J.  M.  Thomp- 
son.   Stokes.    63 


Parley,  Peter,  84 

Parrish,  Maxfield  (illustrator),  148,  150 

Parry,  Judge,  153 

Parsons,  Geoffrey,  87 

Patch,  Edith  M.,  167 

Penrod.  By  Booth  Tarkington.  Doubleday.  177, 
190 

Pepper  and  Salt.     By  Howard  Pyle.     Harper.     154 

Perkins,  Eleanor  Ellis,  117 

Perkins,  Mrs.  Lucy  Fitch,  62,  117 

Perrault,  Charles,  24 

Peterkin  Papers.  By  L.  P.  Hale.  Houghton.  107, 
149,  208,  209 

Pied  Piper.  By  Robert  Browning,  illustrated  by 
Kate  Greenaway.  Warne.  142,  208 

Pierrot,  Dog  of  Belgium.  By  Walter  Dyer.  Double- 
day.  214 


INDEX  233 

Pilgrim's    Progress.     By  John   Bunyan.     Century. 

150 
Pinocchio,   the   Adventures    of   a   Marionette.     By 

Carlo  Lorenzini.     Ginn.     149,  208 
Plummer,  Mary  Wright,  126 
Poe,  Edgar  Allen,  36,  185 
Poems  by  a  Little  Girl.    By  Hilda  Conkling.    Stokes. 

157,  161,  163,  213 

Poems.    By  W.  B.  Yeats.    Unwin.     121 
Pogany,  Willy  (illustrator),  152 
Pollyanna.    By  E.  H.  Porter.     Page.    37 
Pool   of    Stars.     By    Cornelia    Meigs.     Macmillan. 

"3,  IQI 

Posy  Ring.  Edited  by  Mrs.  K.  D.  Wiggin  and  N. 
A.  Smith.  Doubleday.  143,  196 

Potter,  Beatrix   (illustrator  and  author),  62,  143 

Poulsson,  Emilie,  no 

Pride  and  Prejudice.  By  Jane  Austen.  Button. 
185 

Primrose  Ring.     By  Ruth  Sawyer.     Harper.  191 

Princess  and  Curdie.  By  George  MacDonald. 
Blackie.  154,  209 

Princess  and  the  Goblin.  By  George  MacDonald. 
Blackie.  154,  208 

Puck  of  Pook's  Hill.  By  Rudyard  Kipling.  Double- 
day.  60 

Punch.  137 

Pyle,  Howard  (illustrator  and  author),  99,  119,  153, 

154 
Pyle,  Katharine  (illustrator  and  author),  55,  155 


Q 

Quentin  Durward.     By  Sir  Walter   Scott.     Black. 
195 


234  INDEX 


Rackham,  Arthur   (illustrator),  46,  54,  56,  144,  149 

Rebecca  of  Sunnybrook  Farm.  By  Mrs.  K.  D. 
Wiggin.  Houghton.  37,  39,  177,  200 

Red  Fox.    By  G.  C.  D.  Roberts.    Doubleday.    212 

Refugee  Family.    By  Flavia  Canfield.    Harcourt.    113 

Reka  Dom.  In  Mrs.  Over-the-Way's  Remembrances 
by  Mrs.  J.  H.  Ewing.  Bell.  42 

Remington,  Frederic   (illustrator),  145 

Rewards  and  Fairies.  By  Rudyard  Kipling. 
Doubleday.  60 

Rhead,  Louis  (illustrator),  152,  153 

Rhead  Brothers  (illustrators),  150 

Rip  Van  Winkle.  By  Washington  Irving.  Double- 
day.  149 

Ritchie,  Anne  Thackeray,  199 

Riverside  Magazine  for  Young  People.     71 

Roberts,  G.  C.  D.,  212 

Robinson,   Charles    (illustrator),   142 

Robinson  Crusoe.  By  Daniel  Defoe.  Harper.  152, 
178,  192 

Romance  of   Aircraft.     By  L.   Y.   Smith.     Stokes. 

9i,  US 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  107,  108,  118 

Rosamond.  In  Early  Lessons  by  Maria  Edgeworth. 
Dutton.  134 

Rose  and  the  Ring.  By  W.  M.  Thackeray.  Putnam. 
149 

Rosemary  Greenaway.  By  Joslyn  Gray.  Scribner. 
114 

Russian  Picture  Tales.  By  Valery  Carrick.  Black- 
well.  57 

S 

Saint  Joan  of  Arc.    By  Mark  Twain.    Harper.    119 
St.  Nicholas.    71,  130 


INDEX  235 

Sandman's  Forest.    By  Louis  Dodge.    Scribner.    53 

Sarg,  Tony  (illustrator),  137 

Sawyer,  Ruth,  112,  191 

Scarlet  Letter.  By  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  Button. 
185 

Schultz,  James  Willard,  63,  168 

Scotch  Twins.  By  Mrs.  L.  F.  Perkins.  Houghton. 
117 

Scott,  Captain  Robert  F.,  172 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  176,  185,  193 

Scott's  Last  Expedition.  By  R.  F.  Scott.  Dodd. 
172 

Scouting  for  Girls.  Edited  by  Mrs.  J.  D.  Bacon. 
Girl  Scouts  of  America.  216 

Scudder,  Horace  E.,  65,  71,  76,  92,  101,  103,  144 

Seaman,  Augusta  H.,  113 

Second  Jungle  Book.  By  Rudyard  Kipling.  Cen- 
tury. 148 

Sedgwick,  Henry  Dwight,  32 

Serbian  Fairy  Tales.  By  Madame  E.  L.  Mijatovich. 
McBride.  57 

Seton,  Ernest  Thompson,  22 

Seventeen.     By   Booth  Tarkington.     Harper.     175, 

177,  190 
Shasta   of   the   Wolves.     By   Olaf   Baker.     Dodd. 

116 

Shedlock,  Marie  L.,  163,  164 
Sheringham,  George  (illustrator),  57 
Shining  Ship.     By  Isabel  Mackay.     Doran.     58 
Short  History  of  Discovery.    By  H.  W.  Van  Loon. 

McKay.    61,  145 
Sidgwick,  Ethel,   165 
Sinclair,  May,   135,   164,  175,   181 
Sleeping   Beauty.     In   Tales   of   Mother   Goose   by 

Charles    Perrault,   translated   by   Charles   Welsh. 

Heath.     185 


236  INDEX 

Sleeping   Beauty.     Retold   by   Sir   Arthur   Quiller- 

Couch.     Doran.     146 
Sleigh,  Bernard,  165 
Slipper  Point  Mystery.    By  A.  H.  Seaman.    Century. 

H3 

Slowcoach.    By    E.    V.    Lucas.    Macmillan.      208 
Smith,   E.   Boyd    (illustrator   and   author),   52,   93, 

147 

Smith,  Elva  S.,  116 

Smith,    Jessie    Willcox    (illustrator),    60,    118,    154 
Smith,  Lawrence  Yard,  91,  115 
Smith,  Nora  Archibald,  143,   148,   151,   196 
Soldiers  of  the  Sea.    By  W.  J.  Abbott.    Dodd.    65 
Song  of  Hiawatha.    By  H.  W.  Longfellow.    Hough- 
ton.    145 

Songs  of  Innocence.    By  William  Blake.  Lane.    142 
Springtide  of  Life.     By  A.  C.  Swinburne.    Lippin- 

cott.     46 

Stanley,   Sidney    (illustrator),  57 
Steel,  Mrs.  Flora  Annie,  56 
Stevenson,  Burton  E.,  151 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  36,  99,  141,  142,  186,  193 
Stickeen.    By  John  Muir.    Houghton.    214 
Stockton,  Frank  R.,   71 
Stories  from  Old  French  Romance.    By  E.  M.  Wil- 

mot-Buxton.     Stokes.    207 
Story  Book  of  Science.    By  J.  H.  Fabre.    Century. 

22 
Story  of  a  Bad  Boy.    By  T.  B.  Aldrich.    Houghton. 

176 
Story  of  Jesus.    By  Mrs.  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.    Marshall 

Jones.     105,  166 
Story  of  My  Boyhood  and  Youth.    By  John  Muir. 

Houghton.    212 

Story  of  Opal.    By  Opal  Whiteley.    Atlantic.    213 
Story  of  Roland.     By  James   Baldwin.     Scribner. 

153 


INDEX  237 

Stuart,  Mrs.  Ruth  McEnery,  73 

Stuck,  Hudson,  172 

Sun  of  Quebec.     By  Joseph  Altsheler.     Appleton. 

90 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  46 
Swift,  Jonathan,  152 
Swiss  Family  Robinson.     By  J.  D.  Wyss.     Harper. 

69,  153,  20S 

T 

Tailor  of  Gloucester.    By  Beatrix  Potter.    Warne. 

143 

Tale  of  Johnny  Town-Mouse.     By  Beatrix  Potter. 

Warne.    62 
Tale  of  Peter  Rabbit.    By  Beatrix  Potter.    Warne. 

143 
Tales  of  Laughter.     Edited  by  Mrs.  K.  D.  Wiggin 

and  N.  A.  Smith.    Doubleday.     196 
Tales  of  the  Punjab.     Edited  by  Mrs.  F.  A.  Steel. 

Macmillan.    56 
Tales    from    Shakespeare.     By  Charles   and    Mary 

Lamb.    Scribner.     155 
Tales  of  Wonder.     Edited  by  Mrs.  K.  D.  Wiggin 

and  N.  A.  Smith.     Doubleday.     196 
Talisman.     By  Sir  Walter  Scott.     Lippincott.     195 
Tappan,  Eva  March,  166 
Tarkington,   Booth,   175,   181 
Tegner,  Hans  (illustrator),  151 
Ten  Thousand  Miles  with  a  Dog  Sled.    By  Hudson 

Stuck.     Scribner.     172 
Tenniel,  Sir  John   (illustrator),  146 
Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  149,  185 
Thaxter,  Celia,  124 
Thayer,  William  Roscoe,  85 
Theodore    Roosevelt's    Letters    to    His    Children. 

Scribner.     107 
Thompson,  Jean  M.,  63 


238  INDEX 

Three  Bears.    By  L.  L.  Brooke.    Warne.    143 

Three  Little  Pigs.    By  L.  L.  Brooke.    Warne.     143 

Three  Mulla-Mulgars.  By  Walter  de  la  Mare. 
Knopf.  04 

Three  Musketeers.  By  Alexandre  Dumas.  Crow- 
ell.  207 

Through  the  Looking  Glass.  By  Lewis  Carroll. 
Macmillan.  146,  209 

Timothy's  Quest.  By  Mrs.  K.  D.  Wiggin.  Hough- 
ton.  197 

Tolman,   A.  W.,  64 

Tom  Brown's  School  Days.  By  Thomas  Hughes. 
Harper.  178,  188 

Tom  Sawyer.  By  Mark  Twain.  Harper.  34,  174, 
176,  182,  215 

Tom  Thumb.     By  L.  L.  Brooke.     Warne.     143 

Townsend,  Ralph  M.,  119 

Treasure  Island.  By  R.  L.  Stevenson.  Scribner. 
192,  209 

Tree   of    Heaven.     By   May    Sinclair.     Macmillan. 

135 

Twain,  Mark,  24,  117,  119,  174,  176,  181,  189,  212 
Twenty   Thousand    Leagues    Under   the    Sea.     By 

Jules  Verne.    Putnam.    51 
Twin  Travelers  in  South  America.    By  M.  H.  Wade. 

Stokes.    53 
Two  Little  Savages.    By  E.  T.  Seton.    Doubleday. 

212 

U 

Uncle  Remus:  His  Songs  and  His  Sayings.  By  J. 
C.  Harris.  Appleton.  52,  148 

Uncle  Remus  Returns.  By  J.  C.  Harris.  Hough- 
ton.  53 

Under  the  Window.  By  Kate  Greenaway.  Warne. 
141 


INDEX  239 

Understood  Betsy.    By  Dorothy  Canfield.    Holt.    37 
Up   the    Mazaruni    for   Diamonds.     By   W.   J.   La 

Varre.    Marshall  Jones.    115 
Usher,  Roland,  167 


Van  Loon,  Hendrlck  Willem  (illustrator  and  au- 
thor), 61,  145 

Verne,   Jules,   36,   63 

Verses.  By  M.  W.  Plummer.  Privately  printed. 
126 

Vision  of  Sir  Launfal.    By  J.  R.  Lowell.    Houghton. 

195,  200 

Vive  La  France.  By  E.  B.  and  A.  A.  Knipe.  Cen- 
tury. 113 

W 

Walker,  Dugald  Stewart,  62 

Wallace,  Dillon,  64 

Walpole,  Hugh,  41,  135,  140 

Water  Babies.     By  Charles  Kingsley.     Dodd.     118 

Wells,  Carolyn,  59 

What    Happened   to    Inger   Johanne.     By   Dikken. 

Zwilgmeyer.     Lothrop.     no,  208 
Wheeler,  Francis  Rolt,  65 
When   Mother   Lets   Us   Make   Candy.     By   E.   D. 

and  L.  F.  Bache.    Moffat.    208 
When  We  Were  Little.    By  M.  F.  Youngs.    Dutton. 

118 

White,  Eliza  Orne,  65 
Whiteley,  Opal,  213 
Wiggin,  Mrs.  Kate  Douglas,  143,  148,  151,  177,  181, 

196,  200 

Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known.  By  E.  T.  Seton. 
Scribner.  22,  212 


240  INDEX 

William  Henry  Letters.  By  Mrs.  A.  M.  Diaz. 
Lothrop.  107,  149 

Wind  in  the  Willows.  By  Kenneth  Grahame.  Scrib- 
ner.  69 

Winter,  Milo  (illustrator),  92,  93 

Wonder  Book.  By  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  Hough- 
ton.  150 

Wonder  Book  and  Tanglewood  Tales.  By  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne.  Duffield.  150 

Wonder  Clock.    By  Howard  Pyle.    Harper.    154 

Wonder  Garden.  Edited  by  F.  J.  Olcott.  Hough- 
ton.  92 

Wonderful  Adventures  of  Nils.  By  Selma  Lagerlof. 
Doubleday.  136,  152,  210 

Wonders  of  War  in  the  Air.  By  Francis  Rolt- 
Wheeler.  Lothrop.  65. 

Wonders  of  War  on  Land.  By  Francis  Rolt- 
Wheeler.  Lothrop.  65 

Wordsworth,  William,  124,  135,  180 

World  Book.     (8  volumes)     World  Book  Co.    83 

Wyeth,  N.  C.   (illustrator),  63,  89,  153 

Wyss,  Johann  David,  153 


Yeats,  William  Butler,  121 

Young,  Mrs.  Florence  Liley   (illustrator),  no 

Young  Trailers.     By  Joseph  Altsheler.     Appleton. 

34 

Young  Visiters.    By  Daisy  Ashford.    Doran.     134 
Youngs,  Mary  Fannie,  118 


Zwilgmeyer,  Dikken,  no 


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